


Long Live The Kings

by me_4eva



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abusive Neil Hargrove, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Complete, Dark, Depression, Drama, Eventual Romance, Hurt Steve Harrington, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Neil Hargrove is His Own Warning, Racism, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Torture, additional warnings in chapters, warnings include:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-01-27 21:03:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 58
Words: 474,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/me_4eva/pseuds/me_4eva
Summary: Steve barely heard his own scream as the doctor pulled. The room lurched sideways as his vision rocked, his head fell against his chest as he closed his eyes to everything. The pain in his hand was excruciating, his heart was pounding. He barely heard a thing over the pounding in his ears but he could definitely feel the scream tearing at his throat.--------Dustin is faced with a difficult choice. When he makes it, he can't help but feel like he's sentenced Steve to death.The reality is much worse.Stranded far from home with no way back, Steve must work with everything he has to survive and stop an ever-growing threat to a home made unrecognisable by the aftermath of tragedy.Starts midway through season 3, major spoilers for the whole show. Trigger warnings in individual chapters. NOW COMPLETE!
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Eventual Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 1061
Kudos: 1600





	1. Prologue: Decisions

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! So a heads up about this story - it's going to be LONG. Seriously, I've planned four parts with multiple chapters each. Second, this is rated for teens but it does deal with some adult themes. There's swearing, moderately graphic depictions of torture, and that's all in chapter 1. It won't get explicit, but I'm warning you now.

“The best thing we can do for them now is to go back to the surface and get help,” Dustin said firmly.

Erica pouted, clearly not thrilled with the idea of doing the ‘safe’ option. Dustin wasn’t exactly thrilled about his decision either, but realistically, he was stuck in an air vent in a secret Russian base accessible only by a terrifying elevator disguised as a storage room in the new mall with Steve and Robin MIA, presumed captured by Russian soldiers hell bent on destroying the country by opening up a gate to another dimension. And he had his friend’s ten-year-old sister for company.

Only in Hawkins.

Two years ago, he might have had Erica’s sense of invincibility. Hell, he definitely empathised with it. It had been the same feeling he’d had when he, Lucas and Mike had snuck out in the middle of the night to look for their friend in a storm. Perhaps if one of the Party was with him, he might have considered it. If it had been Hopper or Joyce with him, or even Nancy or Jonathan, he would have been doing what Erica was doing, demanding to go help his friends. But it was Erica fucking Sinclair. And all those familiar qualities that he recognised all too well as his own, when being repeatedly shoved in his face by this ten year old – a ten year old who hadn’t hesitated to believe him when he told her stories about Demogorgons and other dimensions and a superpowered friend that would have had any rational person who hadn’t seen them for themselves scoffing, laughing or quite possibly institutionalising him – only set him more on edge about her naivety and youth.

Truth be told, her company only made him feel more alone than he’d ever been in his life.

And she was talking, by god she was talking. Words drifted through his thoughts… _they’d do the same for you… what do you think will happen to them without us… how will they get out without help… what if the grown ups decide it’s too dangerous…_ It got on his nerves. He forced himself to think about Steve and Robin, how less than a year ago Steve had tried to talk the Party out of helping Will and Eleven by setting fire to the tunnels because it was a stupid risk to all their lives. How terrified he had been when a pack of Demodogs rushed towards them all. How Steve had rushed to get everyone out of the tunnels as fast as possible without giving a thought to himself. How he’d pulled Dustin close as the Demodogs rushed past them, more by luck than anything, because Steve had promised Nancy that he would keep her brother and his friends safe.

Dustin looked at Erica, as though seeing her for the first time. The similarities between her and Lucas suddenly became much more pronounced. He’d never noticed how her nose was exactly the same shape as her brother’s. He thought about what Lucas would do if anything happened to Erica. He thought about what Lucas would do to _him_ if anything happened to Erica _because of his choice._ He tried to think about what something happening to Erica would do to Lucas, but found that he couldn’t even contemplate that.

He thought about what Steve had done all those months ago, and what he would say if he was here.

His mind was made up. And it would not be changed.


	2. Part 1 Chapter 1: Shorts Aren’t Fun In Basements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PART 1: HAWKINS, JULY 1985

Something in those drugs was making his vision swim.

Ok, there was a possibility it wasn’t the drugs, and was instead the repeated punches to the stomach, the concussion from one too many blows to the head, and the massive adrenaline rush that had come from nearly having one of his fingernails pulled out. But honestly the drugs weren’t exactly helping.

Steve barely heard Robin babbling about them picking up the message, barely heard her taunting them about how they were a couple of kids who cracked their secret code, about how they _scooped ice cream for a living…_ A part of him wanted to join in as those words vaguely penetrated his awareness but the wave of nausea that was threatening to make him empty his stomach clamped his mouth shut.

He involuntarily shivered as the nausea passed, leaving only a blinding awareness of just how cold it was in that room. Evidently the Russians missed the freezing cold winters and arctic winds, and so were overcompensating by keeping this secret lair nice and cool. Well, it was either that or else just another side effect to the aforementioned drugs, stomach punches, concussion and adrenaline rush.

The Russians evidently decided that Robin was the more talkative of them, so directed the next question to her.

“What do you know about the Gate?”

Steve could have screamed in relief that the question wasn’t about who they worked for. But he still wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of telling a group of decidedly unfriendly Russians all about another dimension filled with Demogorgons and Mind Flayers and Shadow Monsters and god knows what else. Particularly not when they were trying to get access to this other dimension.

“Nothing,” he heard Robin say. “I don’t even know what that thing is, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Steve tried his best to look innocent, or at least ignorant, but his head was so fuzzy that as he looked up at the doctor, he was sure all he looked was exhausted. It took most of his energy to lift his head, and his jaw went slack. The doctor looked at something above Steve’s head – most likely the General – before suddenly the pliers were back on his fingernail.

“What do you know about the Gate?” the General repeated.

“Wait – what are you – please-” Steve started to stammer.

“I told you, I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life!” Robin’s voice rose half an octave.

“Last chance…”

“No, no – wait-”

“I don’t know anything!”

Steve barely heard his own scream as the doctor pulled. The room lurched sideways as his vision rocked, his head fell against his chest as he closed his eyes to everything. The pain in his hand was excruciating, his heart was pounding. He barely heard a thing over the pounding in his ears but he could definitely feel the scream tearing at his throat.

Slowly his senses came back to him. He felt himself breathing fast, too fast, and tried to force it to return to a normal pattern. His hearing returned slowly, enough to hear Robin’s panicked voice.

“…Steve! Steve, talk to me! Steve! Steve, are you ok? For god’s sake, _Steve!_”

He didn’t have it in him to talk just yet as he realised he’d closed his eyes. He slowly opened them. The room was still spinning and everything was blurry. He blinked to try and put his vision in focus, and then blinked a few more times when it didn’t immediately work. Finally his vision eased into its usual clarity, and the nausea suddenly hit him again in full force at the sight that greeted him.

His left hand was curved around the arm of the chair, slack. Almost in a dream he twitched his middle finger, dimly aware of the throbbing pain at the end of it, a shadow of what had come a second ago. He had to swallow his nausea as he saw that where his other fingers ended in relatively neat fingernails, his middle finger ended in a bloody mess, the constant bleeding swallowing up the sight of whatever wound it was. He vaguely saw the doctor drop something onto an aluminium tray, a light tap as it hit the metal. He baulked as he focused on it, and realised it was his missing fingernail, torn at one end, covered in blood – _was it really that long, or did it go that deep into his finger?_

The doctor handed the tray to the General, and he held it out for Robin to see. Robin finally fell silent, and Steve felt the chairs jolt as she recoiled. A shiver ran down his spine at the General’s next words.

“Your friend has nine more fingernails and ten more toenails. I would suggest that you are honest with me from now on.”

Steve’s breathing started coming shallow and fast. Any control he had regained over his breathing was gone as the doctor lined up the pliers on the fingernail on his ring finger.

“Tell me,” the General said. “What do you know about the Gate?”

“Please…” Robin begged. She sounded close to hysterical. “Please, I don’t know anything about any gate… Please believe me… we scoop _ice cream!_ I’m just trying to earn some money for a road trip to Nashville in the fall… I don’t know anything about any gates!”

“She doesn’t know anything,” Steve finally said, surprising himself with how hoarse his voice sounded. “I don’t really know much either.”

The General walked back round to come face to face with Steve. The doctor remained where he was, pliers still clamped around his fingernail, but unmoving.

“Tell me what you do know,” the General said coldly.

Steve’s breath hitched in his chest before he started babbling. “I – I don’t know when it opened for the first time – or how – but it was about two years ago. This – this _thing_, this… this _creature_ – came through it – I don’t even know what it was – and it killed my girlfriend’s best friend. Well, I say girlfriend – she’s not my girlfriend anymore – she broke up with me-”

There was a crack and Steve gasped as the General backhanded him across the face. “I did not ask about your girlfriend. Tell me about this creature.”

“I… I don’t really know what it was, I – I only saw it once, we tried to fight it – my… my girlfriend and I, and – and her friend – well, now her boyfriend – it took his brother, I – I don’t really know how he survived but he did-”

“Steve!” Robin shouted.

“But – but anyway, we – we tried to trap it somehow – it didn’t really work, it escaped, but I think something else must have stopped it, because – because her friend’s brother came back-”

“Steve!” Robin’s interjection was more pronounced, and finally Steve stopped talking. His head was reeling as he tried to go over everything he’d just said. He was breathing hard. He’d… He’d…

_He’d just told the Russians all about Will._

Even Robin, who’d had no idea about any of it, had known he should have stopped talking, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. The drugs, the adrenaline, the fear… He’d been terrified of losing a _fingernail_, so he’d put Will Byers straight in the crosshairs of a group of evil Russians.

Russians who had no qualms about torturing an eighteen year old boy.

His nineteenth birthday was coming up in September. He’d been planning a big party at his house. His parents, predictably, were away on business but he had a feeling they were deliberately giving him some space this year. Certainly his dad had turned a blind eye to the slowly growing stockpile of beer in their cellar. He’d always thought his dad was an asshole while he was growing up – he’d certainly had more than a few flings with attractive young secretaries and didn’t have the best track record as a husband even when he wasn’t cheating – but since graduating, Steve had come to realise that, as a father, his dad did care about him and wanted the best for him. It was just that he and Steve had never agreed on what ‘the best for him’ was.

And now Steve was going to die in a Russian spy lair, with a girl he had no idea how to tell that he liked her, having sold out his friends. And he was going to die in a fucking sailor’s uniform.

“The brother,” the General said. “What was his name?”

“What?”

“The brother who was… ah, _taken_… by this creature – what was his name?”

Steve clamped his jaws together and shook his head. “No,” he said through gritted teeth.

“_Excuse me?_”

“No… no, I’m not telling you,” Steve said defiantly.

The General grabbed Steve’s face in one hand and yanked it up so he was looking directly into his eyes. “Do you need a reminder of the pain?”

Steve just stared back, trying to glare as best he could.

“We will find out one way or another. We can find your old girlfriend, we can find her current boyfriend, and we can find his brother. It would not take long. The only difference is how much pain you go through.”

Steve kept his teeth gritted as he let out a growl.

“_Go to hell_.”

The General nodded at the doctor, who finally pulled. The doctor was pulling it out more slowly than he’s pulled the last one, so Steve could feel it ripping away from the nailbed much more clearly than he remembered the previous nail. He closed his eyes and pushed his head back, biting back the scream with his gritted teeth, letting a pained groan. He didn’t quite succeed as the nail came free and his jaw unclenched involuntarily, and he cried out in agony. His head swam again as he gasped for breath, still not quite sure which way was upright. He heard the soft tap of the nail in the tray again but he kept his eyes closed this time.

As his head continued to swim, he felt something pull it up by his hair, and felt a hand tapping his face gently.

“Come on,” the General’s voice was saying. “Come on Butterscotch, open your eyes.”

Steve found it inherently odd hearing himself called Butterscotch, even more so hearing himself called Butterscotch in a thick Russian accent, but he indulged himself in another moment of keeping his eyes closed, a moment of petty defiance.

A moment too long, evidently. He was jolted into opening his eyes as the gentle tapping to his cheek changed abruptly to a sharp slap. He winced and opened his eyes.

“I will ask again,” the General said, nodding at the doctor, who once again lined up the pliers onto Steve’s little fingernail. “The name. Please.”

“Will Byers!”

Steve started at the shout. He’d almost forgotten Robin behind him.

“It was Will Byers, wasn’t it, Steve?”

Steve closed his eyes and let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He opened his eyes to see the General and the doctor looking at him expectantly. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Will Byers.”

His whole body collapsed in defeat against the restraints holding him to the chair. The General stood upright and folded his arms across his chest.

“So this… Will Byers… comes back, and that is the end of it? The Gate closes?”

Steve doesn’t quite understand this assessment. Evidently something shows on his face, because the General cocks his head curiously.

“Or is it the end?”

Steve nods, hoping against hope but knowing deep down that it will do nothing. “Yeah, that was the end of it,” Steve said breathlessly. “Gate closed until you guys decided to open it up again.”

Steve looks up at the General in what he wished was a winning, rather than desperate, smile.

“What happened next, Butterscotch-”

The General broke off as a whooshing sound suddenly echoed in the corridor. A second later, a soldier not much older than Steve came bursting into the room and said something very fast in Russian. The General looked alarmed for the first time since the interrogation had started.

“Skazhi Grigori nayti Will Byers,” the General said to the doctor. The doctor nodded smartly and left the room. The General then looked down at the two teenagers.

“We will find Will Byers,” he said threateningly. “And we will find that curly haired friend of yours.”

For the first time since Steve had found himself losing fingernails, Steve managed a genuine cocky smile. “You sure about that?”

The General spared him one final look of utter distain, before walking out after the young soldier. But Steve at last felt a little bit of hope.

The sound that had caused so much alarm had been the sound of the elevator.

-:-

“So what’s the plan now?” Erica said belligerently.

“We sneak back into the mall,” Dustin said, leading the way down the corridor. “It’ll be too suspicious if we’re seen around the loading bay, and we don’t know how many other Russians there are. So we get back into the mall and walk out the front door like we’re just a couple of kids going shopping.”

“And then what?”

“Then we find Hopper and we tell him what’s going on.”

“Great.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah.”

“Does the idea involving you using that cattle prod?”

Erica swung the electric cattle prod that she’d picked up from the cart they’d found in the Russian base in a satisfied way. “Yep. Go back down and take out Commies using this thing.”

Dustin shook his head at the relish in her voice as she said that. “Yeah, well, my way doesn’t get us all killed.”

“No, it just gets your friends and the Chief killed.”

That was a sore spot. “It won’t do that,” Dustin snapped vehemently.

“I’m just saying,” Erica said coolly. “You’re putting an awful lot of faith in an alcoholic with a gun.”

“He’s not an alcoholic,” Dustin bit back. “And I’ve seen him in action, he’s the best chance Steve and Robin have. And also…” Dustin stopped and rounded on her. “Even if he was an alcoholic, how is using that to insult him helpful to anything?”

Erica recoiled away from Dustin defensively. “Okay, sorry, Jesus…”

Dustin shook his head again and started back down the corridor towards the door. They opened it – thank God Steve had forgotten to lock it – and found themselves in the back room of Scoops Ahoy. The store was still completely locked up at the front, but beyond the grill they could still hear the chatter and noise of people still out shopping.

“Okay,” Dustin said, sitting down at the table and pulling out the radio. “I’m going to try and get hold of Mike or Lucas or Will or someone, see if they know where Hopper is, and then we get out of here.”

“Great,” Erica said in that dry tone of hers, before wandering towards the door to the main shop. “I’m going to go enjoy some free samples.”

“Wait – wait – wait-” Dustin called after the swinging door. “Erica!”

Erica ignored him, and Dustin made the call that life was too short.

He started to tune the radio, and settled on a channel.

“Anybody, do you copy? Mike, Lucas, Will, Max, anybody, do you copy?”

Static. He retuned it to another channel.

“Mike, do you copy? It’s Dustin. Does anybody copy?”

Zilch. Next channel.

“Hello, anybody? Does anybody copy? The Red Army has invaded Hawkins. Does anybody copy?”

Static. He reached out to tune the radio to the next-

_“Dustin?”_

“Lucas?” Dustin’s voice rose.

_“Dustin!”_

“Lucas! Oh thank god! I’m sorry – I’ve been MIA, it wasn’t because I was mad – well it kind of was at first – but then we got trapped in a secret elevator – and then there was this base-”

_“Whoah, whoah, slow down! What are you talking about?”_

Dustin hadn’t realised he was becoming breathless. “Sorry, sorry, long story short, the Russians have invaded Hawkins. Do you know where Hopper is?”

_“Sorry, what?”_

“Mike?”

_“Yeah, Dustin, hi. What did you just say about Russians in Hawkins?”_

“They built a secret base under the mall! I think the whole mall was a cover! They’re trying to open the Gate and they’ve got Steve and Robin hostage!”

_“They’re trying to open the Gate!?”_ Mike’s voice jumped up in panic.

“Yeah, and they’ve captured Steve and Robin! I’m at the mall with Erica and I really need Hopper! Do you know where he is?”

_“Er… Hopper… we think he’s in Illinois.”_

Dustin’s heart sank. “Illinois? Fucking Illinois?”

_“Yeah, we… we think so… El looked for him and heard him saying something about Illinois.”_

Dustin let out a growl of frustration. “What the fuck is he doing in Illinois?”

_“I don’t know, Dustin, why don’t you ask him when he gets back?”_

“Mike, I really don’t have time for you to be-”

Dustin broke off at the sound of a clattering at the front of the shop. He leapt towards the door to try and grab Erica, but she was one step ahead of him, bursting through into the back room.

“Okay, we’ve got to go,” she hissed. “Pretty sure the Russians have found us!”

“You sure they’re Russians?”

“Well they weren’t speaking English!”

_“Dustin? Dustin, do you copy? Dustin!”_

Dustin grabbed the radio from the table and shut it off, cutting off Mike’s yelling. He and Erica slipped out the back door and into the corridors behind as the grill at the front of the shop came up, and Dustin prayed to whatever god there was that the Russians hadn’t heard the door shut behind them.


	3. Part 1 Chapter 2: Elvis Has Left The Building

Steve was relishing in the break as he and Robin were left alone. He was doing everything he could to avoid looking at his left hand. He was desperately trying to get his breathing under control again, but the room just wasn’t staying still.

“Steve?”

Steve didn’t have it in him just then to answer Robin just then. He closed his eyes against a fresh wave of nausea as the room started to spin.

“Steve? You still alive?”

Steve braced himself and tightened his grip with his right hand on the arm of the chair as the movement slowly subsided.

“Steve?”

“Yeah…” Steve breathed. “Yeah, I’m still alive…”

He heard Robin breathe a shaky sigh of relief. “You ok?” she asked.

If he’d had the strength, Steve would have laughed at the question. Instead, he let out a shuddery breath that might have in another life been a sign of amusement. “Yeah, Robin, I’m great,” he said dryly.

Robin clearly sensed she’d touched a nerve. “Sorry…”

Steve sighed. “Don’t be sorry,” he said softly. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this mess.”

Robin gave a soft chuckle. “Don’t flatter yourself with delusions of your own importance in my decision-making process. I wanted to come along to check out those boxes because it sounded a hell of a lot more fun than slinging ice cream all day. You had very little to do with it.”

Steve actually managed a small laugh at that – or at least something more recognisable as a laugh. “Well, if it wasn’t for you, we probably would still be upstairs trying to crack that code.”

Robin started laughing properly. “You wouldn’t even have been able to _translate_ that code if it wasn’t for me.”

“So really all this is on you.”

“All this is on your strange little friend.”

“Ah yeah, he’s the real reason…”

They both stopped laughing at the thought of Dustin and Erica.

“Do you think they made it out?” Robin asked.

“Hope so,” Steve said softly. “Hope that’s the cause of all this chaos.”

They fell into an uneasy silence for a few moments, before Steve suddenly remembered something.

“Nashville…” he said, not relishing how hoarse his voice was. “What’s in Nashville?”

“Huh?”

“You told the Russians that you were saving up to go to Nashville, why? What’s in Nashville?”

If Steve had been able to see Robin’s face, he might have backed off at the panic that crossed her face. But he’d never been particularly perceptive, and didn’t notice the slight hitch in her breath.

“Seriously, are you, like, do you want to be a _singer_ or something?”

Robin finally let out an audible sigh. “I don’t.”

“Then why-”

“_I_ don’t. _She_ does.”

That had Steve totally lost. “Who?”

“Tammy Thompson.”

“I don’t get it.”

Robin sighed again. Steve couldn’t help feeling slightly insulted, as though Robin was making a joke and he was the only person who wouldn’t have got it.

“You know all those things I told you? About Clickity-Clack’s class? And how you’d come in late dropping bagel crumbs all over the floor?”

“Yeah…?” Steve still wasn’t following.

“I didn’t notice those things because I was looking at you. I noticed them because _she_ was looking at you, and I had _no idea_ why. I didn’t know what she saw in you, you barely even noticed she existed. But every single time she saw you, she would stare at you, looking at you like you were the best thing in the world, even though you’d drop _bagel crumbs_ on the floor, even though you’d be late and make stupid jokes and laugh with your stupid friends, and you were an _idiot!_”

“Thanks,” Steve said, even more confused than before.

“God, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” Robin laughed bitterly. “I haven’t even told my parents, but I guess if we’re going to die down here it doesn’t matter if you think I’m a freak or whatever.”

“I don’t think you’re a freak,” Steve said. “I think you’re confusing as hell, and you haven’t gotten to the point yet, or else I’m missing something big here because I never saw you say two words to Tammy Thompson while we were at school-”

“You never saw me while we were at school, period,” Robin chuckled. “You were too busy making stupid jokes with your stupid friends.”

“The jokes weren’t… well, yeah the jokes were kind of stupid,” Steve conceded. “The friends were, too.”

“And then you chucked them to go off fighting monsters with a group of middle schoolers.”

Steve sighed. “Yeah. Does wonders to a six-year friendship with Tommy H.”

Robin turned her head as far as it would go to try and catch a glimpse of part of the side of Steve’s head. “I get why you had that cool guy womaniser front, but Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington was a total douchebag. When we started working together, I was surprised when I realised that I actually _liked_ hanging out with you. There’s a lot more to you than meets the eye.”

“Same with you, Band Geek,” Steve said. “So go on. You going to tell me why you were so pissed that _Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington_ caught the eye of Tammy Thompson?”

Another sigh from Robin. “I wanted to be the one to catch her eye. I wanted her to look at me the way she looked at you.”

Something started to click into place in Steve’s brain. “But Tammy Thompson’s a girl…”

“Steve.”

The penny dropped. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

A sinking feeling of disappointment settled in his stomach. But it was mitigated by the realisation that this particular rejection had nothing to do with him. “So Tammy Thompson… she’s going to _Nashville?_”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re going with her?”

“I’m going to _visit_ her.”

“And Tammy Thompson… does she _know_ you’re planning this?”

“N-no…”

Steve couldn’t help laughing at that. “So she’s going to _Nashville_, and you’re going to just show up there, and – and _what?_ Declare your love for her?”

“Maybe not quite like that, but it’s romantic.”

“Err – no, it’s _stalking._ Also, she’s going to get eaten alive in Nashville, she sounds like a muppet.”

“She doesn’t sound like a muppet!”

“She really does! Look, all I’m saying is you can do better than _Tammy fricking Thompson!_”

Robin started to laugh too. “So you’ve never fallen for the girl you’d least expect? What about Nancy Wheeler?”

“Hey, that’s different!”

“What’s so different? She was a perfect little straight-A princess who had absolutely _no idea_ how to have fun and you fell for her _hard!_”

“Hey, in my defence, she’s great at fighting monsters.”

Any response Robin might have had was drowned out by a loud bang as the door burst open. The two teenagers swung their heads sideways to look at the General and the doctor. Something had shifted in the dynamic – where previously the General had been calm and entirely in control, something had changed him. He was angry, unsettled, volatile…

And a lot more dangerous.

The laughter that wasn’t dying quickly enough on Steve’s face was evidently enough to set off the General, because a second later his head cracked sideways and he felt the aftermath of a fist colliding with an already painful head.

“Tell me,” the General growled. “What is the name of your curly haired friend?”

Something in the latest blow to the head had evidently addled his senses because he immediately regretted his next words.

“Elvis Presley.”

A blow to the stomach – he could almost feel the internal bleeding – and another one to his nose as a hand messed into his hair and closing into a fist near his scalp, yanking his head higher. Bright lights danced across his vision as he heard a crunch of cartilage as pain exploded from his nose.

“You think you are _funny_, Butterscotch?” the General hissed. “Mikhail!”

Steve’s vision eased into seeing the doctor – Mikhail, evidently – approach.

“Mister U.S.S. Butterscotch thinks he is a comedian now. It is clear he no longer fears losing fingernails. Perhaps it is time for him to lose his fingers instead.”

Steve felt the panic rising in his chest as the General let his hair go. “Wait – what?”

Mikhail wheeled a small metal tray table over to where Steve was sitting and started to undo the restraints on Steve’s left hand. The doctor slammed Steve’s hand down on the tray table, holding it in place by the wrist with one hand while picking up a handheld power drill with another. Mikhail placed the bit – a small Brad Point bit that couldn’t have been more than a couple of millimetres wide – against the top of Steve’s little finger, right against the first knuckle from the tip.

Steve realised what was about to happen and felt the panic in his chest rising up his throat.

Wait.

Not panic.

His stomach violently heaved and he retched its contents into his lap. _Oh, god, he was wearing shorts._ He felt it splash down his legs and into a puddle on the floor. The General had taken a step back to avoid the mess but once his body had stopped convulsing he felt the hand in his hair again.

“Tell me the name of your little friend and spare yourself this.”

“For god’s sake, Steve, just _tell them!_”

Steve still didn’t open his mouth for fear of being sick again. The doctor lifted the drill slightly and gave it an experimental whirr. His stomach was settling slightly, but he could feel sweat beading on his forehead. Well, more sweat. His mouth parted slightly in panic, and he felt relief that more of yesterday’s lunch wasn’t coming out of it. He finally found his voice.

“I don’t want to sell out my friend,” he said, barely more than a whisper.

It sounded so completely pathetic, from sentiment to delivery. What little was voiced was a whimper higher than he would admit his voice was capable of making. A ball of a sob was wedged in his throat. He knew his rationale was stupid, but he’d already told the Russians about Will Byers, and he didn’t want to put another of the shitheads on their radar. _God, everyone was right about him. He really was an idiot._

The General nodded at the doctor, and Mikhail lined up the bit again on the top of Steve’s knuckle. Steve barely had time to brace himself for what was about to happen before the drill bit shredded his skin on his knuckles. He dimly heard Robin indignantly scream his name – _or was it worry? _ – as the drill drove deeper into his finger. Steve closed his eyes as his mouth opened in a silent scream – _god, his voice really had gone_ – and then the drill hit his knuckle – _nope, there was his voice_ – whatever bone or cartilage was there cracked within seconds – _was it now between the joint?_ \- tears were running thick and fast down his face – his scream kept filling the room – he could barely hear Robin’s own screams – how deep into his finger was it now? – _Oh GOD! _

A shot of pain lanced up his finger towards his nail and he knew, _somehow_ he knew that one of the bones in his finger was broken. His scream intensified into a shout as his eyes flew open at this new pain. His screams were coming broken after that – he could finally hear what Robin was shouting.

“…Stop it! Please! Stop hurting him! I’m begging you – _PLEASE!_”

The drill was almost completely through his finger –

“The name!” roared the General –

“HIS NAME’S DUSTIN HENDERSON!”

Suddenly everything stopped. The drill went silent, Robin stopped screaming, Steve’s own screams died down into broken, panicked sobs and desperate, shallow gasps. Slowly his brain caught up with what had just happened – he hadn’t screamed the name – he hadn’t been present enough in his head to make any coherent words – did that mean…

“Robin…” he gasped.

“I’m sorry, Steve, I couldn’t listen to them do that to you…”

Steve could hear a barely restrained sob in her voice. If he’d had anything left in him, he might have comforted her, might have told her it was okay, because it wasn’t her fault, not really…

“I know you wanted to protect him…” her voice was getting higher. “But I couldn’t let them do that, I’m so sorry…”

Her voice shook before she dissolved into tears. Steve didn’t think telling her not to cry was going to do much to help given that he was still gasping through his own sobs. His vision really wasn’t focusing at all. Everything was blurry, darkness was hovering on the edge of his vision. And _god_, did his hand hurt. Unbidden, he found his eyes swinging towards his left hand, and his stomach started doing somersaults again…

The drill was still sticking out of his finger, which was sitting at a very odd angle. There was less blood than he expected, a small pool at the point where the drill went in and a couple of small trickles that were running his finger. But it was still bleeding, blood kept steadily oozing out of the grooves in the drill bit.

“Who is he?” the General asked.

Steve started shaking as the doctor held the drill bit steady as he detached the motor. Every jolt sent a shock of pain through his fingers. His breath was coming faster and shallower. “He – he’s just a middle schooler, I – I don’t know what to tell you, man – He’s just a really eager middle schooler who – he doesn’t _work_ for anyone or anything like that – he’s not like some government spy or something – _Jesus!_”

The doctor yanked the drill bit from his finger sharply. The blood suddenly started coming thick and fast, rushing up out of his finger and over the rest of his hands. The movement pulled at the shattered joint and bone and he felt it settle at an angle that felt just so _wrong_.

The General gave Steve a second to recover his breathing. “What else?”

“I – I don’t know what you want me to say – he’s kind of into tech and radios and crap – Oh! Wait – He, uh – he built that radio – the radio that picked up your signal!”

“He created the radio?” The General questioned dryly.

“Yeah…” Steve said breathlessly. “Your super-secret spy signal… was picked up by a radio… made by a middle schooler.” A smile broke out over his face. “At camp.”

The General looked displeased by this information. Or quite possibly by Steve’s grin. It wasn’t an unusual reaction. “Where is he now?”

Steve didn’t let the smile drop just then. _What the hell was wrong with him?_ “I don’t know.”

“Guess.”

“Probably looking for Hopper.”

“What?”

“_Jim Hopper_,” Steve said slowly. “Police chief. He’s probably already on his way down here… to kick all of your asses back to Russia and close the Gate again.”

“Steve!” Robin hissed, a second too late.

“_Again?_”

There was silence as Steve clocked his mistake.

“What do you mean, _‘again’_? This ‘Hopper’ closed the Gate before?”

Steve didn’t say a word. Not that he needed to. The General crouched down to look Steve right in the eye. Steve slumped his head forward to try and avoid the General, but it didn’t work as the General just grabbed a fistful of his hair near the scalp and yanked his head up again.

“How did Hopper close the Gate?”

Steve had made a lot of mistakes that day. Between him and Robin, they’d told the Russians about Dustin and Will Byers. Steve didn’t think he’d ever be able to look either of them in the eye again. But there was no way – _no way in hell_ – that he was going to rat out El.

“I don’t know.”

The General threw Steve’s head back and grabbed the reassembled drill from the doctor. He slammed Steve’s hand down against the tray table and pressed the bit against the back of Steve’s hand, right against the bone that linked his little finger to his wrist. Steve felt oddly calm in the split second before the drill started up – _evidently the drugs and the pain were making him light-headed_ – but a second later he was screaming. Again.

The eventual crack as the drill broke the bone apart proved too much for Steve. The darkness that had been hovering on his peripheral vision finally engulfed him as the world tilted and unconsciousness pulled him down into its depths.

-:-

“Dustin?” Mike said again into the radio, only to be met with static. “Son of a _bitch!_”

“What happened?” Nancy asked, pushing herself away from the counter. “Did he say something about Steve being _captured by Russians?_”

Mike didn’t answer, just looking down at the radio angrily.

He, El, Max, Lucas, Will, Jonathan and Nancy were in Hopper’s cabin. They’d spent the better part of the day trying to work out where the Mind Flayer and his army or his weapon, or creature or _whatever_ – was going to strike next when Dustin’s voice had burst through the radio.

“Well, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to help them,” Lucas said. “We’ve got to go to the mall!”

“On our _own?_” Jonathan asked incredulously. “We can’t just _storm a secret Russian base!_”

“Yeah, but we can help Dustin and Erica get out of the mall!”

“And then we can find Hopper and work out how to get Steve out of there,” Max interjected.

“Look, man, she’s my _sister!_ I don’t care if she’s an annoying little-”

_“Guys?”_ The radio blared up.

“Dustin!” Lucas shouted, grabbing the radio off Mike. “You ok?”

_ “Yeah, yeah… Look, the Russians are looking for us, we really need a ride out of here! We’re going to lie low in a movie and try and get out when the crowd leaves, can you be there in a couple of hours to pick us up?” _

Jonathan took the radio. “Yeah, Dustin, we’ll be there. Two hours. We’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

_“Great, thanks!” _ The relief in Dustin’s voice was palpable. _“You’re a lifesaver! Over and out!” _

White noise filled the room as Dustin finished talking and the radio stopped connecting. Jonathan switched it off and it down on the table, and a tense silence fell.

“So what do we do now?” Lucas broke the tension.

“Well…” Jonathan said softly. “I suppose we could try to find Hopper in the meantime.”

“Yeah, but how the fuck are we going to do that? He’s in Illinois!”

“Illinois!” Nancy said, something finally clicking. “He’s in Illinois!”

She was met with six extremely confused faces staring at her.

“Jonathan, what do we know in Illinois?” she continued. “_Who_ do we know in Illinois?”

“Er…” Jonathan suddenly caught on. “Murray Bauman – wait, you think they’ve gone to see Murray Bauman?”

“Who’s Murray Bauman?” Mike asked, getting more annoyed by the second.

“A conspiracy theorist,” Jonathan answered. “We went to see him last year.”

“He helped break the story about Barb,” Nancy added.

“Oh.”

“Well, can we check?” Max asked. “El, do you think you can check?”

“I don’t… know…” El said hesitantly. “I don’t know… Murray Bauman…”

“Hang on,” Jonathan rushed towards the rug and flung it back. He quickly pulled open the trapdoor and rushed down into it. _Thank god Hopper kept everything on all the secret government conspiracies he was involved in. _

Jonathan pulled out a box labelled ‘Hawkins Lab’ and started desperately searching through it until he found –

“Yes!” he cried, brandishing the newspaper. It was the newspaper from December 3rd, 1984 – the day the story had broken about the lab covering up Barb’s death. He slammed it down and there, on the front page, was a small headshot of Murray Bauman, with a small caption about how he’d been the one to give the tapes to the Post. “That’s him!”

El looked pensively down at the newspaper.

“Do you think you can find him from that picture? Do you think you can see if Hopper is with him?”

“No – no – no – that’s _enough!_” Mike screamed. “El’s not some… some _satellite_ you can tune to spy on whoever the hell you want on demand-”

“I can do it,” El said, quiet but determined. Evidently Mike’s vehement denial of her abilities emboldened her. She looked straight at Mike and gave him a look of reassuring fondness, but there was an edge of defiance in her eyes. “I can do it.”

Mike found himself edged backwards to the periphery of the group as everyone gathered round in a circle by the television. Not that he moved at all. He just stayed where he was, watching El settle herself down in front of the white screen, that bloody flag wrapped up and tied over her eyes. He watched as she fell silent, every eye in the room on her, a constant feeling of unease twisting his stomach. The blood started to trickle down from her nose, he didn’t like it when that happened, he felt that it was wrong to make her bleed…

“There…” she finally said. “Together.”

“Hopper and Murray?” Nancy asked eagerly. “They’re together?”

“Yes… with Will’s mom… and… a man…”

“What man?” Will asked.

She was silent for a minute, before she finally had an answer for them. “Smirnoff…”

“_Smirnoff? _” Will repeated incredulously. “Isn’t that a vodka?”

“Yeah…” Nancy answered. She’d had some once at a party with Steve last summer, back when they’d been dating. It had tasted significantly worse than the bottle that Murray had given her and Jonathan, tasting closer to paint thinner than an actual drink.

“Quiet!” El snapped, but she didn’t take off her blindfold. Then –

“Alexei…” she finally said. “The Gate…”

“Wait,” Mike finally joined in, moving into the circle at last. “What about the Gate?”

“They know…” El continued. “Car… _Todfather?_… Hawkins…”

“They’re on their way back to Hawkins?”

“Yes.”

El finally pulled the blindfold off. Nancy looked over at Jonathan.

“Jonathan, if they’re coming back from Illinois, they’re probably taking the same road as we did,” she said excitedly.

“We could meet them at the city limits!” he replied, matching her enthusiasm.

“Could we get there before we needed to go get Dustin and Erica?” Lucas asked.

“We probably could, I don’t know if they’d be there.”

“We could drop somebody off to meet them?” Will suggested. “I could wait for them if they’re not there by the time you need to go get Dustin.”

“Yeah, like hell I’m leaving you alone on the side of the road after dark,” Jonathan scoffed.

“I could wait with him,” Nancy suggested. “Leave us there with a radio and if they don’t show we’ll ask you to pick us up?”

Jonathan wasn’t thrilled by the suggestion. “I love you, Nance, but leaving a pretty teenage girl by the side of the road is hardly better than leaving my little brother there.”

“A pretty teenage girl who’s pretty fucking great at fighting monsters,” she pointed out.

Jonathan sighed, before reluctantly nodding. “Fine, let’s do this.”


	4. Part 1 Chapter 3: Great Ideas From A Genius Mind

“How will we know if they pass?” Will asked softly.

Nancy looked down at him. The sky above them had faded through a gorgeous sunset into a deep blue, the moon was starting to shine a light and the stars were making their first appearances. Jonathan and the others had left to go and get Dustin and Erica about twenty minutes ago, leaving the pair alone by a sign on a completely deserted stretch of road.

“Well, they’ll be in the Chief’s car,” Nancy said. “We’ll probably see them coming, and if we don’t, they’ll probably see us.”

“Okay.”

Will was slightly reassured by the fact Nancy had an answer to his question at all, but he wasn’t overly confident in her answer. For example:

“What if they’re in another car?”

“What?”

“What if they took my mom’s car or something?”

“Then we’ll recognise her car.”

“What if it’s too dark?”

“Look, this thing was your idea,” Nancy said incredulously. “What’s your problem?”

“I just realised it’s a terrible idea.”

Nancy snorted. “Yeah, well it’s better than any idea Mike’s ever had.”

Will gave a shy laugh. “He’s had some pretty good ideas.”

“Yeah, but I’m his sister, I’m not allowed to admit that.”

That had Will properly laughing. “So that’s where he gets it from.”

Nancy laughed, slightly confused. “What?”

“Mike has some good ideas, sure, but he thinks he’s the _only _person who has good ideas,” Will elaborated. “If someone else has a good idea, he’s always really resistant to the whole thing. Even if the rest of the Party goes along with it, he’s always really difficult about it.”

Nancy laughed. “Sounds like Mike. Always got to be in charge.”

“You should have seen him at Halloween when Lucas showed up wearing a Venkman outfit.”

“Oh, I bet he loved that.”

“Yeah, he was all like ‘_there can’t just be two Venkmans!’ _He was really mature about it.”

“Course he was.”

“And now he’s being, like, _super_ protective over El.”

“Hey, come on, that’s actually kind of sweet.”

“Yeah, but he needs to chill,” Will said. “He’s basically smothering her. Mom and Jonathan did the same to me for months after they got me back from the Upside Down. It’s like… I was ready to try standing on my own two feet, but they wouldn’t let me.”

Nancy looked at him. “Maybe you were ready, but _they _weren’t.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t _need_ to be ready,” Will said. “I _needed _to try. I needed to try _living_. It was like I was suffocating.”

“I don’t know, Will,” Nancy said. “I was there for Jonathan when you went missing. It messed him up pretty bad. And your mom… _God,_ I’ve never seen anybody like that…”

Will looked uncomfortable. “I guess… still, I missed out on a _lot _of things because they weren’t ready. And I can’t live my life for anyone else. It took them a while to actually _let_ me live my life for _me…_ to make my own choices.”

Nancy stayed quiet. She really didn’t know what to say.

“And Mike needs to let El make her own choices too.”

Nancy nodded at Will’s conclusion. “Yeah…” she breathed. “Yeah, I guess he does.”

An awkward silence fell between them.

“Sorry,” Will said quietly. “I didn’t mean to unload on you like that.”

“It’s fine,” Nancy said. “I’m always here if you ever need someone to talk to.”

Will smiled. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem.”

“Hey, and for what it’s worth… I’m really glad Jonathan found you,” Will said. “I can see how happy you make him.”

Nancy looked surprised by the admission. “Aw, that’s… that’s sweet.”

“Oh, and – full disclosure – Mom and I know you spend the night sometimes.”

“What?” If Nancy had looked surprised before it was nothing to how she looked now. She decided to play dumb. “No I don’t.”

Will actually started laughing again. “Yeah, we know you stay the night and sneak out of Jonathan’s window. I think it annoyed Mom the first time, but I think now she just wishes you’d come out and have breakfast with us, and have a proper shower and, you know, just use the front door.”

Nancy’s nervous look was the most obviously guilty thing Will had ever seen. He couldn’t quite smother the smirk that crept onto his face.

“Pretty sure Mom’s, like, a step away from just deliberately bursting in on you climbing out the window to put an end to it.”

Nancy held that horrified look for a second longer before a guilty smile spread across her face. “Well, I suppose it’d be better for my dresses.”

They both started laughing, and once they started, they couldn’t stop. Eventually, once their sides were hurting too much for them to stand upright, they started to settle down again.

“Do you reckon they’re alright?” Will asked.

“Your mom and Hopper?” Nancy asked. “Yeah, they’ll be fine. It’s just a couple of hours back from Illinois. They should be here soon.”

“I was talking about the others.”

Nancy fell into an uneasy silence. “Yeah,” she said, more confidently than she felt. “They’ll look out for each other. Besides, El’s with them. They’ll get Dustin and Erica out. Those Russians don’t stand a chance.”

“And Steve and Robin?”

Ah. That was a little more difficult. “That’s why we’re waiting for Hopper.”

Nancy put a reassuring hand on Will’s shoulder, before something occurred to her.

“So who’s this _Robin_ everyone keeps talking about?” she asked.

The tension in Will’s shoulder eased slightly. “She works with Steve. She’s fun.”

“Oh,” Nancy said. “Is there something going on there?”

“What, like, _romantically?_” Will asked. “Don’t think so. Steve keeps trying to pick up girls that come into the shop. Robin keeps track of how many times he strikes out.”

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t anything,” Nancy pointed out. “If she’s doing that, she’s definitely paying attention to his existence. Doesn’t necessarily mean she likes him like that, but Steve’s not exactly going to hold back if he notices that.”

“Would it bother you if they started going out?” Will asked. “I know you guys were together for a long time.”

“No,” Nancy said quickly, but was slightly surprised to realise she meant it. “I mean… I like him, and I care about him, but… Steve was… _safe._ He was the _safe_ option. And we had fun together. He’d push me to go out and go to parties, and I’d have fun with him. And yeah, maybe there was a time when I thought I loved him, but _now…_ Whatever I felt for Steve, it’s just a shadow for what I feel for Jonathan now. And yeah, things were a bit awkward with Steve after we broke up, and I don’t see him much at all now that he’s graduated, but honestly, he was actually pretty grown up about the whole breakup, and if he finds someone who makes – hang on, what’s that?”

A light had appeared at the end of the road. Nancy and Will started towards the roadside, leaning forward to squint at the light. Wait. Lights. Two lights. Headlights.

The car was getting closer. Nancy realised it was yellow – not Hopper’s car, not Mrs Byers’. She took a couple of steps away from the road.

“It’s not them,” she said.

Will didn’t immediately respond, still looking at the car. He took an uneasy step back as it drew closer. He squinted at the license plate.

_TODFTHR_

“Todfather,” Will breathed.

Without warning, he sprinted out into the road, waving his hands around to try and get the car’s attention. The driver slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded. Nancy ran forward and grabbed Will’s arm, pulling him back to the roadside as the car screeched, steering sideways to avoid Will.

Finally, everything came to a halt, and the driver’s door opened.

“_What the hell, kid!?_” screamed the driver as he got out. “You got a death wish or something?”

Nancy beamed as the driver walked into the light.

Hopper.

-:-

“Dustin? We’re in the parking lot waiting for you. Over.”

Mike had been repeating the same mantra into the radio at thirty second intervals for the last twenty minutes. Though to everyone else in the car, it felt like a hell of a lot longer.

Jonathan had suggested putting on some music, and so had put on a mixtape he’d made for Nancy that she’d left in the car, but after Max started taking the piss out of the music that was on there, things had gotten heated and Max had eventually turned it off in a huff after Jonathan had called her favourite band as bad as “nails on a chalkboard.” Jonathan had then started laughing at her incredibly mature response, Lucas had gotten involved to defend her, Max had rounded on him about fighting her battles for her, and things were just about to get out of hand when Mike had finally screamed at everyone to shut up because he needed to hear if Dustin was going to answer. This had only led to Jonathan, Max and Lucas snickering at the overreaction, while El just looked very lost by the whole interaction.

Suddenly, the doors to the mall opened, and people began streaming out.

“Reckon that’s the movie crowd?” Max asked.

“Dustin? Come in! We’re in the parking lot! Over!”

Nothing.

“Can’t see them,” Jonathan said. “I’m going to go try get a better look. You guys stay here.”

Jonathan got out of the car and started to walk towards the mall. As he approached, he saw a few men in black uniforms talking to everyone leaving the mall. Instantly set on edge, he picked up the pace and bowed his head and tried to walk through the doors unobtrusively.

A hand on his chest stopped him. Evidently he’d been given away by going against the flow. He looked up into a man’s face – Caucasian, with long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.

“I’m sorry, sir, the mall is closed,” the man said in a truly dreadful attempt at an American accent that did very little to hide the Slavic undertones.

Jonathan decided to play dumb. “Oh, uh – sorry, I was just looking for my little brother. I’m meant to be picking him up.”

“Maybe you could wait here, I’m sure he’ll come out eventually.”

“Oh, uh, okay…”

Jonathan looked back through the doors to see Dustin walking down the hall. As Dustin saw him – and the man in black – he slowed. Jonathan locked eyes with him and gave him the tiniest shake of the head.

Dustin grabbed Erica’s hand and started to walk back through the crowd towards the movie theatre. Jonathan felt tension rising as the man next to him kept looking through the crowd, peering through –

“Hey!” the man shouted, finally noticing Dustin’s retreating back. Dustin threw a quick glance over his shoulder before breaking into a run. The man made a move to start chasing after him, but Jonathan sprang into action. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and threw him backwards. Two of the other men in black started to chase after Dustin, while the last one came to help tackle Jonathan. Jonathan careened sideways as the new man ran into him. The man on top of him tried to pin his hands down, but Jonathan brought his knee up and pushed him off. Jonathan used the Russian’s temporary loss of balance as a chance to scramble to his feet and take off after Dustin and Erica.

-:-

Dustin ran faster than he thought he’d ever run before in his life. He felt like he was dragging Erica along the floor after him. In a blind panic, he burst through a door, and another one, and suddenly he was in a movie theatre. The underpaid teenager sweeping popcorn up evidently wasn’t being paid enough to spare them more than a passing glance as they tore through the room and straight out the second door. Down the hall, out a door labelled ‘staff only’ and into a white corridor. Dustin hared down and grabbed the handle of the first door he could see –

Locked.

He swore loudly. He tried another. Also locked –

“Here!” Erica called.

She’d found the door to the Chinese place – the same place that those boxes of green goo had come from. Without time to overthink it, they ran in and closed the door behind them.

Dustin crouched down so he wouldn’t be seen from the food court. Staying low, he beckoned Erica over to a corner under the counter. There was a pile of cardboard boxes by the door and as quietly as he could, he pulled them closer into the corner to help hide them, and ducked down just as he heard the Russians in the hall outside.

Voices spoke words that Dustin couldn’t have possibly hoped to understand. There were footsteps – lots of footsteps – before –

_BOOM!_

The Russians had clearly tried one of the doors Dustin had tried just a few seconds earlier. Voices started talking in that incomprehensible language, footsteps started again –

_BOOM!_

Another door tried. More footsteps. More talking.

_BOOM!_

This time they were successful. The door to Imperial Panda burst open and bounced back off the wall from the force of the kick. Three Russians came in, guns held out in front of them, and scanned the room.

One of them gave a signal, telling the others to sweep the front of the shop while he checked the back. Dustin covered his mouth as he saw boots crossing through the open kitchen, the occasional glimpses of silhouettes holding automatic military-grade assault weapons.

_Please, god, someone, send help…_

Dustin felt a knot tense up in his stomach as the footsteps stopped. More quietly than before, the boots started stealthily creeping over towards the back of the shop –

They were converging on the corner.

Dustin pressed himself back into the wall as best he could, doing his best to put himself between the Russians and Erica. Suddenly, Erica tapped his shoulder. She gestured to something at her side – something he couldn’t see – before he remembered.

_She still had that cattle prod._

His heart almost stopped when the pile of boxes hiding them mostly from view moved very suddenly. He started, turning to face one of the Russians leering down at him.

“What do we have-”

Erica lunged. The cattle prod jammed into the man’s chest. The man flew back, blasted off his feet. He was flung far –

Too far.

Out-of-the-shop far.

Out-of-the-shop-and-across-the-food-court-before-smashing-into-a-wall-causing-the-plaster-to-break-into-a-crater far.

Everyone froze, staring at the taser in Erica’s hand. Russians, Dustin and Erica eyed it for a beat.

A second Russian suddenly flew back with no discernible force driving him. He flew out to crash into the floor.

The third had a split second of looking terrified before he followed the second into the ground. Dustin and Erica scrambled out from under the counter to see –

El.

The Party were here with El.

Dustin vaulted the countertop to come out into the open. “Oh my god, I’ve never been so happy to see you guys!”

He pulled El into a hug, babbling something about them saving their asses. He only realised he was shaking when he let her go and saw his hand not staying even remotely steady. Over El’s shoulder, he saw Lucas running towards Erica, completely incredulous to her presence here.

“Where’s Jonathan?” asked Mike suddenly.

“Wait, he’s not with you?”

“No, we saw him get into a fight with one of those guards before he ran off after you guys.”

“So he’s-”

Almost as if on cue, one of the doors on the mezzanine above the food court burst open, and Jonathan came sprinting out. A split second later, the last Russian guard emerged, gun raised.

El raised her hand –

A gunshot rang out throughout the mall. Everyone jumped, El’s hand stayed raised but bent back slightly, brought a fraction closer to her body. As if in slow motion, the final Russian staggered backwards –

Three more gunshots rang out across the hall, and the last Russian staggered backwards towards the fence on the edge of the balcony before falling backwards over the edge and crashing to the floor below. Jonathan finally staggered upright to see Hopper, Joyce, Nancy, Will, Murray and a man he’d never seen before walking towards them.

Finally, they were back together.

It was time to take these Russian bastards down.

-:-

Robin could have sworn she had a heart attack as Steve slumped forwards in his chair.

“Steve?” she called out, desperate for a better look. “_Steve?_”

Suddenly, she had hands on both her shoulders, pressing her into that chair as they began to cut the black tape holding her to the chair – to her friend. They adjusted the position of her chair so she could see as they carried Steve’s unconscious frame off the office chair and finally onto what she could only describe as a terrifying dentist’s chair. Her eyes widened, her stomach threatening to empty itself all over her in the same way Steve’s had done.

They started to strap him down to the dentist’s chair using that same black tape. Robin still had those hands on her shoulders, flanked on either side by Russian guards. She watched as they strapped down Steve’s arms, and then his legs, and then around his stomach.

Satisfied that they were done, they passed over the roll of tape to the guards beside her. She felt the pressure on her right shoulder ease as the guard leant forward to take it –

She swung her whole body left.

Her shoulder smacked into the groin of the guard on her left. He doubled over in pain, his hand releasing its hold on her.

She jumped to her feet, sidestepping the guard on her right as he tried to redouble his grip. She pushed the doctor away from her as he tried to grab her, her hands still taped together in front of her.

A second later she was by Steve, looking down into his bruised, swollen face.

“Come on Steve,” she whispered, putting her hands on his chest and trying to shake him awake. “Steve!”

She abandoned trying to shake him awake. Her hands travelled down to the tape across his chest –

_BANG!_

Blinding pain erupted in the back of her shoulder, throwing her forward over Steve. She’d never felt such pain before. The noise, the force of something hitting her in the shoulder had her ears ringing and spots dancing across her vision for a second.

She dimly registered someone grabbing her by the arms before the room went flying – _no, hold on, that was her –_

She hit the cold floor on her side – thankfully not the side that had just exploded with pain. She looked up to see the General standing above her, gun held aloft. A second later her brain caught up… _the thing that had hit her had been a bullet… the sound had been a gunshot… _

_The General had just shot her in the shoulder to stop her from untying Steve._

She was suddenly aware of the tears in her eyes – aware that there were broken gasps of pain coming out of her mouth.

The General knelt down to face her.

“Your ‘_Hopper_’ had better come soon,” he growled menacingly. “You and your friend are running out of time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god guys! I'm really appreciative of the massive response to this story, thank you so much! Some of you think Steve's having it a bit rough - let me tell you, I've not even STARTED to be rough on Steve...
> 
> Also, just a thing - I'm from the UK, I'm doing what I can to fight my genetic urge to spell color with a U and generally avoid my Britishisms, but if any slip through the cracks, I'm sorry. Please don't hate me.


	5. Part 1 Chapter 4: All The King’s Shitheads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really entertained by this "Chapter 5: Chapter 4" thing. Don't know if I can fix it, it's an interesting quirk and honestly, life's too short. Anyway, enjoy!

It felt good to put his foot down.

Scratch that. It felt good to put his foot down _and be listened to._ After days of Joyce second guessing everything he’d ever said and done, of Smirnoff throwing tantrums over the wrong flavour of sugary ice, of Murray being so far up his own ass he was astonished that the man wasn’t tied up in some weird Mobius strip coming out of his mouth back the wrong way up his digestive system, it felt good for Hopper to only have to tell the kids two or three times that they weren’t coming with them into a dangerous Russian lab.

“Look, kid, I know you want to help your friends,” he told the one with the curly hair – beyond Will he’d have happily called them all Shitheads 1, 2, 3, and now 4 with that redhead joining them, but El had forced him to put a name to Mike. He was still struggling on the other three, but the girl _might _have been called Max? – “I know you want to go down there and help, but I’ve already got two teenagers stuck down there, I’m not having any more of you at risk.”

“But I know the way!” the kid snapped back.

“Yeah, I’m sure you do, but you know who else knows the way?” Hopper said. “Smirnoff. He helped build the entire base. He probably knows the way better than you do.”

“But I left them-”

“Kid, drop it!” Hopper said in a tone that he hoped conveyed finality. “You’re not coming down. None of you are coming down, Jonathan is going to take you someplace safe.”

Dustin opened his mouth to argue one more time, before Hopper put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll bring them back,” he said to Dustin. “I promise I’ll bring them back.”

Dustin gave Hopper one last desperate glare before retreating back to the rest of the Party.

“You ok?” Lucas asked.

Dustin shook his head. “It’s my fault they’re down there.”

“No, it’s not,” Lucas said.

“It is,” Dustin protested. “I made the call to come back up. Your sister was busy telling me how we needed to save them, but I thought it was too dangerous.”

“You were probably right,” Lucas said. “I’m glad you came back up, I don’t want my little sister in that mess.”

Thankfully, Erica wasn’t listening, too busy telling Murray something that, judging by the look on his face, he would have rather ripped out his own eyeballs than listen to. Still, Dustin was not reassured.

“It’s still my fault they went down there in the first place,” he snapped. “I went to Steve with the code after you all ditched me at Weathertop and I asked for his help. Robin got involved and we found out the Russians were doing something with the mall, so we investigated. Found the elevator, and a second later we’d dropped halfway to hell and ended up in that place.”

“Dustin,” Will said softly. “Robin and Steve are old enough to make their own decisions. You can’t put it all on yourself.”

Dustin didn’t answer, he just looked at the floor, overhearing fragments of a heated conversation between Joyce and Hopper.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Hopper rounded on Joyce.

“I’m coming with you.”

“Like hell you are!”

“I can help!” Joyce protested.

“How, exactly, can you help?”

Joyce’s face was the epitome of outrage. “_Excuse me?_ Without me you’d still be running around chasing after a car instead of a motorbike looking for that Russian thug!”

Hopper had had enough. “_Joyce! _You’re not going, and that’s _final!_”

He turned on his heel, signalling for Alexei and Murray to follow. Joyce stood there steaming for all of one second before following after him.

Hopper wheeled around at the sound of her footsteps. “What part of _final _did you not get?”

Joyce opened her mouth to answer, before Murray cut her off. “Look, Jim, just give it up. She’s coming whether you let her or not.”

Hopper glared at him, and then back at Joyce, who was smiling that fucking smug smile she only ever got when she knew she’d one. “Fine,” he growled through gritted teeth. “But if you die down there, I’m not taking care of your kids.”

Joyce smiled as sweetly as she could after him as she followed him to the door. Almost as an afterthought, Hopper finally turned around to talk to the kids.

“Right,” he said. “Look after yourselves. Look after each other. And please…” he took a deep breath. “While we’re gone, try not to do anything stupid.”

And with that, they walked out of the mall and towards the elevator.

-:-

“So where are we going again?” Erica asked belligerently.

“A place in Illinois,” Jonathan explained as he sorted through the keys Murray had given him. “We’re going to stay there and lay low until they close the Gate and kill the Mind Flayer.”

“Why do we have to go to Illinois to lay low?”

“Because it’s somewhere Billy doesn’t know,” Nancy said. Erica’s insistent questioning of everything they were doing was grating on all of their nerves and she was continually surprised at how Lucas had lived with her for ten years without developing a nervous tick every time someone asked any question at all.

“And what happens to Billy?”

This question hadn’t come from Erica. It had come from a small nervous voice of Max. It was possibly the most vulnerable most of them had ever heard her. Nobody wanted to answer her.

“What happens to Billy after they close the Gate?”

Everyone fell into a tense silence. They all knew, Max knew too, _of course she did_, but nobody wanted to say it.

“What’s going to happen to Billy?”

Nancy swallowed. “The Flayed will probably all die,” she said softly. “Like last time.”

Max closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, clearly fighting back tears. Lucas reached out and gently put a hand on her arm.

“I know it’s stupid…” she said, her voice shaking. “I know we’ve got to close the Gate… and I know you all hate him… but…” she took a deep, shuddering breath. “He’s my brother.”

“Hey, it’s not stupid,” Lucas said, pulling her into a hug. Even he’d never seen her like this before.

“I don’t want him to die,” her voice was barely more than a squeak into Lucas’ shoulder.

Nobody knew what to say. Jonathan remembered his own terror less than a year ago at the thought of Will dying when the Gate closed. He remembered the relief he’d felt when the Mind Flayer had left Will, how he’d felt when he’d finally told Hopper that it was out of him and that they could close the Gate.

“Is there anything we can do?” he asked softly.

“We could try getting it out of him?” Will suggested. “Like you did with me last year?”

“We don’t know where he is,” Mike pointed out. “Last year we had you sedated, and we took you somewhere safe. This time, he’s got an army behind him. We’d have to find him, stop him, and get it out of him without the rest of the Flayed finding us before Hopper closes the Gate. And besides, there’s no guarantee it’ll work this time. The Mind Flayer will be expecting it.”

“We could put him back through the Gate?” Nancy suggested.

“Hopper has the only key card,” Dustin said. “You can’t operate the elevator without it. Unless you, like, hacked the lock or something. And I’m pretty sure you need, like, military grade technology to do that.”

“So there’s nothing we can do?” Lucas said, putting a hand on Max’s head.

He was met by a heavy silence. Everyone was looking at Max apologetically, wishing there was something they could say or do –

“Wait,” El said. “I could open a Gate.”

Seven pairs of eyes snapped towards El.

“No,” Mike said firmly.

“What do you mean, you could open a Gate?” Nancy asked.

“She opened the other Gate,” Dustin supplied. “The one at Hawkins Lab.”

“I could open the Gate,” El repeated. “I could send Billy through the Gate. I can close the Gate.”

“No,” Mike snapped. “No! El, are you _crazy?_ You can’t open the Gate again!”

“Billy only lives in the Upside Down,” she said softly.

“El, think about what else could come through that Gate! What if it goes wrong? What if you can’t close it again? Will was taken into the Upside Down when you opened the Gate!”

“I can do it!” El said firmly. She looked over at Max. “I have to try.”

Everyone looked at El. Max peeled away from Lucas’ hold to walk over to her, a glimmer of desperate hope shining in her eyes.

“Do you really think you can control it?” she asked.

El nodded, smiling at Max. “I can do it.”

The decision was made.

“So how do we find Billy?” Jonathan asked.

“El could look for him in her void?” Will suggested.

“That might take too long,” Dustin said.

“Also the Mind Flayer might sense her,” Mike snapped, still very clearly not on board.

“Unless we let him sense her,” Nancy suggested. “We could set a trap. Bring Billy somewhere where we know he’d come. And then we could trap him while El opens the Gate and sends him through.”

“If Billy knows where we are, the rest of the Flayed will too,” Mike pointed out.

“But we can hold them off,” Nancy said. “We can hold them off long enough for El to get Billy through the Gate. And we don’t need to hold them off for long, just until Hopper closes the Gate.”

“This is insane,” Mike said incredulously.

“How are we going to hold them off?” Jonathan asked.

Lucas gasped. “_Fireworks!_”

“What?”

“The Mind Flayer doesn’t like fire, right?” Lucas said excitedly. “Well, we use fire to hold them off! Fireworks are basically like little sticks of gunpowder!”

“That’s…” Will said slowly, “…not the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard, actually.”

“Where do we get fireworks?” Mike said snidely.

“Er, _hello?_” Lucas said, gesturing around him. “We’re in a _mall_ on the _fourth of July!_ There’s going to be some fireworks _somewhere_ in here.”

“Alright, but if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to do it _now_,” Nancy said firmly. “Hopper and the others are already on their way to the Gate, we’ve got to get this new Gate open before they close it. Mike, you stay here with El, look after her. Everyone else, split up and look for fireworks. Don’t bother looking in clothes stores, look in general stores, the supermarket, and so on. If we haven’t found anything in ten minutes, we regroup, we come up with a new strategy. Got it?”

“Hang on,” Erica snapped. “Remember what the Chief said? About not doing anything stupid? I’d say this feels pretty stupid to me?”

“Erica,” Nancy said.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Everyone dispersed (with more than a little grumbling from Erica). Mike sat down beside El as she took that scarf and tied it around her eyes again. Max and Lucas paired off, heading towards the escalator. Before they got very far though, Lucas grabbed Max’s arm and stopped her.

“Are you sure about this?” Lucas asked softly. “If this works, Billy’s still going to be flayed. He won’t be able to come back, he’s going to be trapped in the Upside Down. He’s still going to be gone.”

“But he’ll be alive,” Max said. “That’s enough for now.”

-:-

The darkness was absolute all around her. Every step she took gave a soft splash as though she was walking through water.

She walked with purpose, her eyes on the outline of Billy, his face seemingly illuminated by an unseen lamp. He was just… _sitting there…_

She walked up to him.

“Billy?” she called softly as she approached. Every step she took towards him was more hesitant than the last.

“Billy?” she called again. She was getting closer…

She reached out her hand…

His arm snapped up and caught hers. He was staring at her, eyes wild. She tensed, but didn’t try to pull her arm away. Not yet.

“Billy,” she said. “We want to help you.”

No answer. Not even a blink.

“Max wants to help you.”

Billy’s grip tightened. He stood up.

“So you have finally come,” Billy said. His voice was deeper than where it naturally sat, but ultimately still his own.

She started to try to pull back her arm, but Billy’s grip was too tight.

“We’ve been waiting,” Billy said. “Waiting for you to see…”

“See what?” she gasped.

“That all this… has been for you,” Billy continued. “We’ve been building this… for you. We will find you, and we will kill your friends. And then… we will kill you.”

She swallowed. She had to be brave. She thought of Max, she thought of Hopper, she thought of Lucas and Dustin and Will, the thought of Nancy and Jonathan, she thought of Joyce, and Steve, and Erica… but above all, she thought of Mike. A fierce fire ignited inside of her. She would protect them all. No matter what the cost.

“Starcourt Mall,” she breathed. “We’re waiting for you.”

-:-

Consciousness returned slowly to Steve.

He became aware that he was awake… he didn’t remember falling asleep… His eyes were closed… He wasn’t quite ready to open them…

With a jolt, he became aware of the agony in his left hand. _What had happened? _Unwittingly, he let out a groan of pain, and he suddenly remembered what had happened.

The General. The doctor. The drill.

_“Steve?”_

The call pulled at the edge of his hearing. _Robin._ She was down in this hellhole too.

He slowly struggled to pull his eyes open. Everything was still blurry. He blinked the fog out of his vision, it wasn’t going quickly enough…

Finally, he could make out the slightly blurry outline of Robin. She was sat on a chair across the room from him, taped up to it.

_Where the hell was he if he wasn’t in a chair?_

He took stock of his surroundings, suddenly realising he was lying down in a… _was this a recliner? A dentist chair?_

“Steve!”

Relief was evident in Robin’s voice, but there was also a brittleness to it he didn’t ever remember hearing before. He looked over at her again, finally taking in her appearance properly…

There was blood coming from her shoulder… a lot of blood… too much blood. Deep lines etched into her features told him that she was in a lot of pain, her muscles pulled tight and her jaw tense to try and brace herself against it.

“W-Wait, what happened?” he gasped. _Damn, his throat was still hoarse._ “What did they do to you?”

Robin managed a small smile. “I tried to escape. When I tried to wake you, that Russian General or whatever shot me in the shoulder. Clearly taking you with me wasn’t one of my better ideas.”

Steve was shocked. “Oh my god, are you _okay?_”

“Yeah,” Robin said softly. “Hurts like hell and I’m feeling a little lightheaded, but I’m okay. I think it just went straight through or something-”

She was cut off by the door opening, and the General and the doctor walked back in. The General looked at Steve and broke into a smile when he saw that he was awake. The smile sent shivers up Steve’s spine.

“Ah, Butterscotch,” the General said. “Glad you have joined us once more.”

Steve did his best to glare at the General as he walked towards him. Behind the General’s back, the doctor was pulling out that godforsaken power drill once again. This time however, he was fitting a far bigger drill bit.

“So, Butterscotch,” the General said softly. “Are you ready to talk yet?”

-:-

The blue Camaro pulled up next to the entrance. There was something almost comical about how those glass doors opened for him to let him in with a small ding, as though he was just another shopper. As though it wasn’t several hours after the official closing time, as though this was a normal day, as though he was just a normal person. He was now so very far from normal.

And so was she.

She stood there, in the centre of the food court, that graphic yellow and black shirt making her stand out boldly. Most strikingly, she stood there alone.

He walked towards the escalator, undoing the rope and walking down the stationary steps. “Where are all your friends?” he asked. A passing mockery of this body’s ego.

She didn’t answer. He continued to saunter towards her.

“It doesn’t matter you didn’t bring your little friends to this,” he continued. “All my friends are on their way. There’s too many for you to play with.”

It was enough. With a cry, she raised her hand, and flung this body to the side.

-:-

The doctor cut the front of Steve’s shirt open towards the top and pressed the drill against one of his ribs. Steve could feel the point pressing into his skin.

“Last chance, Butterscotch,” the General growled. “How did this ‘Hopper’ close the Gate?”

Steve swallowed, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t tell them. He couldn’t do that to El.

“I don’t know,” Steve said, an edge of defiance the only thing strong in his weak voice.

A barked command from the General, and the doctor started.

It was different this time – it broke through his skin, but there was more between skin and bone here – he gasped as it moved through muscle – the drill was pulling and tearing it rather than slicing through it like a knife – for whatever absurd reason, he tried not to scream – _like he had any pride left at all – _his breathing became sharper – faster – it was making it worse –

A second later, the drill hit bone. It wasn’t like trying to drill through a joint in his finger – it was so much more intense than it had been in his hand – the bone was bigger – stronger – it was taking more to break it – _god, it was so painful_ – his mouth opened – _so much for not screaming_ – the drill was moving deeper into his bone – there was so much more to it – _was that Robin screaming as well? – _tears were falling down his face – there had to be a limit – _JESUS!_

There was a cracking sound, and Steve knew, like he had before, that the bone had broken. His cry came out broken, and he felt himself going limp. The noise of the drill stopped, and he felt something pulling at his chest. A split second later, the drill bit was yanked out, and he let out an agonised scream that jolted his freshly broken rib.

The doctor wiped the drill bit down with a white cloth – Steve tried not to look – before fitting it back into the drill and pressing it against Steve’s chest again, holding it against the rib below the broken one.

“Once again, Butterscotch,” the General growled. “How did he close the Gate?”

Steve eyed the drill, before looking, terrified, between the General and the doctor. He looked past them both to lock eyes with Robin. She looked as terrified as he felt, tears running down her face, her eyes begging him not to do this.

But he had to protect El.

“I don’t know.”

-:-

El screamed at the strain it took to fling Billy to one side. Something in him was strong, was fighting her at every opportunity. She threw him against a pillar, the same one she’d smashed those soldiers against. He fought, but she didn’t need to hold him for long, just long enough for –

Nancy and Jonathan jumped out from behind the pillar, armed with a spool of wire they’d found in a hardware store. They wrapped it round him, pinning his body to the pillar. They ran the wire round him once, twice, three times, four times, and pulled it tight, staying behind the pillar.

El stepped back as Billy struggled, pulling out the blindfold. She walked over to the radio and turned it on. Static blared through it and she wrapped the blindfold around her eyes. Billy was screaming, it grated at her nerves, but she had to tune him out…

-:-

Steve screamed as another rib shattered.

“How did Hopper close the Gate?” the General bellowed.

“Steve, _please_, if you know, just _tell them!_” Robin begged.

Steve couldn’t answer. He could barely speak through broken sobs. “Please,” he managed to gasp. “Please, just stop, I don’t know anything, please…”

“How did he close the Gate?” the General repeated.

“I don’t know… I don’t know…”

The doctor lined up the drill once more.

“Oh god…”

-:-

The silence startled her after the noise and yelling just a second ago. She needed to look fast for something, _anything_, from the Upside Down. Something she could feel, something she could touch…

She was searching. Last time she had done this, she had known where the monster was. She didn’t want to touch a Demogorgon, but something else, a vine or something, something she could control…

-:-

Billy was struggling against the wires. It was taking all of Nancy and Jonathan’s combined efforts to restrain him, but it wasn’t enough. They were getting tired, Jonathan’s muscles in his arms were tightening, Nancy’s grip was slipping…

Mike, Lucas, Max, Dustin, Will and Erica rushed forwards to help them, grabbing it and pulling. But even with the extra help, Billy was winning. The wire pulled at their hands, tearing the skin away…

-:-

Suddenly, against the darkness, she saw the looming outline of the Shadow Monster. She felt terror rise up in her chest at the sight of it… Had this been what Will had seen last year?

She knew what she had to do, but she was afraid, so _very_ afraid…

She swallowed her fear.

For her friends.

-:-

“Please,” Steve begged as yet another of his ribs splintered and cracked under the doctor’s drill. He knew he didn’t have much left in him to hold out against them. “Please stop, I’m begging you, please, I don’t know how he closed it, I don’t know anything…”

The doctor lined up the drill once again.

-:-

The cable snapped.

Billy had finally gotten an arm free. With supernatural strength only possessed by one of the Flayed, he twisted the cable around his hand, releasing his other arm, and pulled it apart.

Nancy, Jonathan, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Erica and Max fell backwards as Billy detangled himself from the cable. Jonathan was the first to recover, scrambling to his feet and chasing after Billy. He jumped and tried to tackle him, but Billy didn’t fall. He barely stopped. Nancy rushed forward to help, leading the others as they got to their feet.

They had all the effect of a fly stopping a runaway train as they tried to pull him away from where El was sat. Billy ignored them pulling him, he batted away Jonathan as he tried to pull him backwards. He threw Nancy to one side as she tugged on his arm. The children wouldn’t have had any effect even when Billy was human, let alone now –

But suddenly the redheaded girl was between him and El. He knew her, from another life he knew her…

-:-

“How did Hopper close the gate?” the General roared, out of patience. He was tired of these teenagers wailing at him to stop, if he didn’t get an answer soon, he’d put a bullet in both of their foreheads just to shut them up.

-:-

El was close enough now.

She reached out her hand…

-:-

The sound of cracking stone was deafening. The food court rocked as a huge chasm opened up in the floor, spreading up the wall like lightning.

Everyone fell to the floor as the ground shook except for Billy, who stayed standing only by some supernatural balance gifted to him by the Mind Flayer. He stared at the crack as it opened, a terrifyingly beautiful fiery red light shining from the depths.

El pulled off her blindfold. She jumped to her feet and stretched out her arm. With a cry, she lifted Billy up into the air. He struggled against her, twisting and writhing in the air as he fought the force holding him.

She raised her other arm. She screamed as she threw him backwards towards the Gate. Billy fought against it as best he could, stretching out his arm and grasping desperately at the broken stone.

He found a grip.

He started clawing his way desperately at the breach, fighting against El’s power tooth and nail. His other hand found a grip on the other side of the crack, and for a second, he clung on, his fingers breaking their own holds into the stone.

El gave a final scream, blood pouring out of her nose and down her face. She pushed out her hands one last time, throwing Billy back. The rock Billy was clinging to broke away, and he fell through the Gate and out of sight.

-:-

Whatever the doctor was going to do was stopped by the deafening sound of stone cracking above their heads. Alarms started wailing around them. Dust drifted down from the ceiling.

A moment later, a scientist – or so he suspected by that white coat – burst in, yelling something in Russian. His eyes wide, he was babbling away at a speed Steve wasn’t convinced a native Russian speaker was able to understand, let alone him.

The General barked something at the doctor before following the scientist out of the room. The alarms were still wailing, and the doctor was evidently nervous.

“What’s going on?” Robin tried.

The doctor, rather predictably, ignored her. He was looking around the room skittishly, like a nervous animal sensing a predator nearby. His eyes flitted between the corners of the room, alternating occasionally between them and the light fittings where the dust had fallen down from. Steve, oddly, found himself sympathising with the doctor’s fear. It was like an earthquake had just struck, only Hawkins wasn’t exactly a hotbed for geological activity.

At least, not the normal kind.

Suddenly, without warning, the door burst open again. Steve barely had a chance to register the silhouette in the door before a burst of rapid-fire gunshots sent him and Robin recoiling into their respective chairs, eyes tight shut.

The gunshots stopped. They heard footsteps walk into this room. Steve opened his eyes and couldn’t stop the broad smile that spread across his face.

Hopper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know if you noticed, but I had fun with this chapter.


	6. Part 1 Chapter 5: The Perfect Night For Fireworks

The deafening crack would have sounded like thunder on any other night, but on this night, this gaudy American celebration of independence, it was far enough away from the town, with its inhabitants piled into that carnival hosted by that pathetic politician, that it simply blended into the rest of the fireworks.

He was not so far away. He was drawing close on his bike to hear it for what it was. An attack on everything his comrades had spent so long building.

He did not bother checking inside the mall. The fat police chief was too close. He had that traitor scientist. He would know about the elevator.

It was time to make the American pay.

-:-

Jim hadn’t expected it was going to be the Four Seasons for those kids, but he hadn’t been expecting this.

The Harrington kid was strapped down to a table, his face swollen and bloody, with his shirt cut open near the neckline to reveal his chest with blood flowing freely out of three or four deep holes. A power drill covered with blood lay on a tray table beside him. His left hand was an absolute mess, he didn’t even want to think about the missing fingernails, let alone the mess that was his little finger. Behind him, a girl he didn’t know was tied to a chair, swaying slightly. Blood was coming out of a dark patch in her shoulder, shiny and still visibly bleeding.

_God, what had these Russian bastards done to them?_

Harrington’s face broke into a broad grin at the sight of him, even if he was in a Russian uniform.

“_Hopper!_” he cried out, and the desperate relief in his voice twisted Jim’s gut. “I’ve never been more glad to see you!”

Jim got out a pocketknife and started cutting through the restraints tying him down. Joyce slipped into the room behind him and found a pair of scissors on the metal counter by the wall and started doing the same thing with the tape wrapped around the girl. Murray and Alexei stood in the door – Murray trying to hide his shock, Alexei simply looked floored by the scene.

Harrington staggered sideways off the – _dentist chair? – _and looked over at the girl. He tried to stand upright, but clearly wasn’t quite up to it, because he lurched sideways alarmingly into Hopper. Jim caught him and put an arm around him to steady him.

“Easy, kid, easy!” he said. “Just slow down, alright?”

The girl wasn’t much better. Once Joyce had helped her to her feet, he could see that the wound in her shoulder was a gunshot wound.

“Hang on, sit down for a second,” Hopper stopped her, putting a hand out to stop her trying to walk while gently propping Harrington up against the dentist chair. “Let me look at that.”

The girl looked blearily at him for a moment before letting Joyce ease her into the chair again. Hopper crouched down and started to look at it closely for a moment, looking around the back of her shoulder. Sighing, he took off his belt and wrapped it round her shoulder. Memories of doing something very similar to Sam Owens’ leg came flooding back as he did so.

“Give me that scarf thingy you’re wearing,” Jim said.

She looked confused. Hopper gestured to the scarf she had tied under her collar. She started trying to undo it with one hand, before Joyce finally stepped in to help. She handed it to Hopper, who tied it round the girl’s neck and under her arm in a makeshift sling.

“I know it’s not much, but it’ll slow the bleeding until you get back up to the surface,” Jim said softly. He turned to Harrington. “Sorry, kid, I don’t know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

Steve nodded, a lump forming in his throat. Of course, _of course_ Joyce Byers was here, helping rescue them after he’d sold out her son. He swallowed down a wave of nausea as he tried to figure out if he could stand.

“Dustin make it back up okay?” he finally managed to say.

Hopper looked over at him. “Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, he and the Sinclair girl got back fine. He was real worried about you two.”

“I told them his name,” Robin said quietly. Tears were forming in her eyes. “I told them his name to try and stop them hurting Steve.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Steve muttered. “I wasn’t much better.”

He looked up at Joyce, any trace of his default bravado gone, stripped away to reveal just how _sorry_ he was.

“I told them about Will,” he confessed. “Mrs Byers, I’m sorry, I’m _so, so _sorry.”

Joyce’s expression softened into one of sadness, but before she could say anything, Hopper cut them off.

“We’ll deal with that later,” he said. “Right now, we need to go and close the Gate and end this thing. Take that doctor’s key card, go back up to the surface and call yourselves a goddamn ambulance.”

“Wait, no,” Steve protested, a little more energy spreading into his voice. “We’re not leaving you guys!”

“Kid, I don’t have time to have this argument with you,” Hopper snapped. “We need to go quickly, and you two need a hospital.”

“And if we meet any Russians on the way, what are we supposed to do?” Steve pointed out, lifting up his broken hand. As if to emphasise the point, Robin tried to get to her feet and ended up stumbling into Joyce, who wrapped an arm around her.

Hopper looked between the two of them, a ghost of defiance on Steve’s face at the knowledge that he knew he’d win.

“Fine,” he said. “But hurry up.”

-:-

For a moment, they all stood there, staring at the gaping crack in the wall. Lucas, Nancy, Dustin and Erica were in awe. Jonathan and Will looked fearful. Mike was thunderstruck. Max stared into the red light, as though almost entranced.

And El – well, she was stunned.

“Close it,” Mike said, panic raising his voice to an unnecessary volume.

El looked at Mike, before looking at Max. Tears were in her eyes.

“El, _close it!_” Mike screamed.

El kept her eyes on Max, who was still staring at the Gate like she was about to go through it herself.

“Max?” El breathed softly.

The sound of her name seemed to wake her from a trance. She visibly gathered herself together, swallowing, before taking a step back. She blinked rapidly several times, before she finally fell into a step backwards.

“Close it,” Max said with a steely determination.

El raised her hand once again. Slowly, the Gate started to mend itself, threads weaving together at the bottom of the gate, where the light met the ground.

The others stood there, watching in awe as it came together. The threads would illuminate, until they started to pull themselves together when they dimmed, healing together and sealing, a fading fault line the only sign a crack had ever been there.

The Gate had closed halfway when Will, transfixed by the sight before him, almost missed the soft tapping on the glass above their heads.

He felt that tingle on the back of his neck.

“Guys,” he said nervously. He looked upwards to see something – _what was that?_ – above their heads. A looming outline of an enormous, many legged creature…

“RUN!” he screamed.

They had just scattered into the shops when the skylight gave way, and an enormous, monstrous thing came crashing down into the mall with a screech.

-:-

Somehow, though later Hopper would not be able to remember for the life of him how, they managed to make it to the vault with minimal disruption. The blaring alarms that echoed around them were definitely causing mayhem, because on the rare occasion that they ran into a soldier, they were barely spared a second glance. Something about Alexei’s presence, Murray’s charisma when communicating in Russian and their Russian uniforms meant that they weren’t given much thought as they walked through the halls. They were just three guards escorting two prisoners and the chief scientist. Given the wailing alarms, there were evidently stranger things going on.

Alexei led the way into the vault. It was a cold room with a huge door at one end that Hopper privately thought was unnecessarily large for what was only two keys, lit only by a single fluorescent tube and a flashing red light. Of course, there would be a siren blasting over their heads.

Alexei walked up to the keypad on the door. He started putting in the code.

The door buzzed and a red light flashed up.

Alexei tried the code again. A buzz and a red light.

“What’s wrong?” Hopper asked.

Alexei didn’t need to speak English to guess what Hopper had said. He started babbling away in Russian.

“He says the code doesn’t work,” Murray translated. “He thinks they might have changed it.”

“They’ve _changed_ _the_ _code?_” Hopper repeated.

Murray translated, and Alexei responded, sounding increasingly agitated.

“He says after you found him, they might have changed it as a security measure,” Murray translated.

“Well, is he sure? Is he putting it in right?”

Murray translated for Alexei, who replied in a tone that would have been obvious anger in any language.

“He says yes, you-” Murray paused as Alexei let out a slew of angry sounding Russian slurs. “Yes, you idiot,” Murray finished.

“Oh, _real nice_, Smirnoff,” Hopper snapped.

“Do you want me to tell you what he _actually _said?” Murray offered.

Before Murray could translate what would no doubt have been a very colourful description of Hopper, Alexei started talking again, his voice getting more worried than angry now.

“He says he’s put in Planck’s Constant five or six times now,” Murray translated. “Six – zero – two – six – zero – seven – zero – one – five-”

“Planck’s Constant?” Robin repeated, saying the first words she’d said since leaving that godforsaken room. “That’s not Planck’s Constant.”

“What?”

“I don’t know it all by heart,” Robin said, “but I know it begins six point six two six, not six point zero two six.”

Murray said something in Russian to Alexei, who looked around at her, before putting in the new sequence of numbers into the keypad.

The door beeped and the light turned green.

Alexei stood back and smiled, before turning back to look at Robin.

“Spasiba,” Alexei said to her, a broad grin on his face.

“He says thanks-”

“Yeah, I – I got it…”

“Alright Robin!” Steve said, patting her gently on her good shoulder.

Hopper walked past Alexei to retrieve a steel briefcase from inside the vault.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s go blow up that Gate.”

-:-

Mike held his breath as he chanced a glance round the corner of the counter. That… _thing_ – whatever it was – was standing over the Gate. It was facing the other direction, bearing down on the prize car that stood behind those velvet display ropes.

A second later, there was a crash as one of its enormous legs stamped down on the car. The alarm started blaring, and the creature roared. It slammed its leg down again on the bonnet, before finally wrapping its broken, distorted claws around it and throwing it across the room. Mike’s gaze followed the car as it flew through the air he and saw it land less than three feet from where Nancy and Jonathan were hiding behind the information desk.

Mike turned towards El, Max and Lucas, who were hiding with him, and he squeezed El’s hand.

“El,” he breathed. “Whatever happens, you have to close the Gate.”

They’d made a plan in case the Mind Flayer’s army had showed up – get up to the mezzanine where they’d stockpiled all the fireworks they’d managed to find. Mike had absolutely no idea whether it would work with this _monster_, but it was the only plan they had. They didn’t have much of a choice.

“We need to distract it,” he breathed. “El, do you think you can do something?”

El nodded silently. She closed her eyes, and thought back to the day Dustin had come back from camp. She could do something similar here. There were things in this mall that she could turn on. She kept her eyes closed, and imagined the escalators moving. She pressed them to work, willed them to turn on…

There was a crunching noise, and the escalators whirred into life. The monster turned sideways with a start. El snapped open her eyes, just in time for Mike to spring to his feet.

“_Go!_” he mouthed insistently, trying to keep as quiet as he could.

The other three sprang up and bolted through the maintenance door. Mike was the last one through, just in time to see a long tentacle stretch out, its claws at the end of it outstretched, as he slammed the door behind them.

Mike, El, Max and Lucas leaving gave the others enough time to move themselves. Dustin, Erica and Will made it to the door first, causing the monster to snap its monstrous head round to face them. Will froze, eyes wide, as the creature’s tentacle lashed round, launching itself towards him –

Dustin yanked his arm and practically threw him through the door just as Jonathan sprinted out from behind his own counter.

“HEY!” Jonathan shouted.

The monster spun around to face him, but that was as far as Jonathan’s plan extended. He began to run backwards –

“Jonathan!” Nancy screamed.

She’d found a door out of the food court – it was a fire door leading into the maintenance corridors less than five feet from him. He made a beeline for it –

The tentacle whipped round and closed its claws around his arm. Nancy ran forward to grab him, catching his hand as he was dragged into the air, but there was only one of her, she couldn’t hold him –

A bright light exploded above her head off the back of the monster. Jonathan crashed down to the floor on top of Nancy as Lucas lit another firework.

“Flay _this_, you piece of shit!” he yelled as he threw it.

Mike made it to the mezzanine just in time to see Nancy and Jonathan sprint towards the fire door. He grabbed El’s arm.

“El, we’ll hold it off,” he said urgently. “Just close that Gate.”

-:-

It turned out open firing an automatic rifle into the air was an excellent way to disperse a roomful of terrified Russian scientists.

The room emptied within a matter of seconds. It didn’t matter anymore that it was blatantly apparent that none of them were Russian soldiers. They had the keys.

“They’re going to call for backup,” Steve pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter,” Murray said. “This… is going to blow up the machine. Anything down there is going to get vaporised.”

“Oh,” Steve said, raising his eyebrows at the revelation. “That’s convenient.”

“You complaining, Harrington?” Hopper asked.

Steve shook his head as he shrugged. “Forget I said anything.”

Alexei started looking at the readings on the various dashboards, before babbling at them in Russian again.

“He says the Gate’s unstable,” Murray translated. “That’s what all these alarms are for.”

“Will it still work?” Joyce asked.

Alexei continued to babble away.

“He says that this will blow up the machine,” Murray offered. “And it will cut the power to the Gate, but…”

“But what?” Hopper asked. He really hated the word ‘but’.

“But there’s a chance the Gate is self-sustaining now,” Murray continued. “He says if we want to close it, we have to turn off the machine now. He says it may already be too late.”

Hopper looked alarmed. “Then we do this now,” he said decisively.

He opened the briefcase and found two keys. He handed one to Joyce and they walked up to the two podiums just beyond the row of computers. They put the keys into the slots.

“On three,” Hopper said. “One-”

A gunshot behind them cut them off. Hopper and Joyce wheeled around to see the biker that had been tailing them standing in the doorway behind them, gun held up, pointing it at Alexei, who collapsed over the computers.

_That Russian bastard…_

Steve grabbed Robin and pulled her down under a table. Murray jumped to his feet and ran towards him, grabbing the gun, but the Russian swung his fist and sent Murray sprawling sideways, smacking his head against the side of the table Steve and Robin were crouched under. The pair saw him hit the floor unconscious, blood coming out of a shallow wound on the side of his head.

Hopper lifted his own gun up and pointed it at the Russian. The Russian grabbed the barrel and swung it sideways into Hopper’s face, sending him staggering. Joyce tried to make a grab for the Russian’s pistol, but he grabbed her and threw her away from him.

Hopper felt a fire rise up in his chest at the sight of Joyce hitting the floor. Without a second thought, he grabbed the Russian and threw him out of the room and down the steps towards the Gate.

-:-

She was almost there.

It had taken more out of El than anything had ever done before – even closing the Gate last time – but she would do this. She had to do this. She’d told Mike, and Max, and everyone that she could do this.

She would do it for them.

The fireworks were exploding below her. Everyone was on that mezzanine level, sending explosions of brightly coloured sparks down onto that monster. The monster was twisting and flailing, always trying to get to her, but she couldn’t deal with it now.

She had to concentrate on closing the Gate.

She was so close now.

The last few strands were joining… the fire for her friends burnt brighter than the sparks that burst into life on the monster’s back. They were drawing together…

_There!_

The Gate finally sealed. The red light illuminating the room from it faded away.

She’d done it.

She stood there, exhilaration filling her whole body. Her breathing became deeper, slower –

_BANG!_

She’d stood there a moment too long. A tentacle swung out and slammed into her side. She flew through the air like a ragdoll, landing at the top of the escalator, before she went crashing down it.

“_El!_” she heard Mike scream.

She hit the bottom of the escalator. Everything was hurting so much…

She rolled over and staggered to her feet, only to come face to face with that monstrosity.

-:-

The alarms all stopped wailing.

Steve scrambled out from under the table as soon as Hopper and the Russian soldier had crashed out of the room. He ran over to Joyce, helping her to her feet.

“Are you okay?” he asked frantically.

She nodded, not quite meeting his eyes. She hadn’t looked at him properly since the revelation about Will.

Steve tried not to think about that.

He went over to Murray, first checking to see if he had a pulse. When he found one, he tried shaking him awake but to no avail. Joyce, meanwhile, went to check on Alexei, who had none of Murray’s luck. The bullet had gone straight through his back and out of the middle of his chest. It was a kill shot with military marksmanship.

As Robin got out from under the table, all three of them turned towards the Gate, where Hopper and the Russian were fighting. The guns had gone, lost to the gaps between the walkway and onto the floor below. It had devolved into a fist fight.

A fist fight Hopper was losing.

Steve looked nervously over at Joyce, who was staring, horrified but transfixed, by the sight before them. Tears were forming in her eyes. Every time the Russian landed a blow, she gave a small gasp. In that second, Steve saw how much she cared for him.

He had to make up for how badly he’d let her family down. How badly he’d let _her_ down.

He had to do something.

“Stay here,” Steve said to Robin and Joyce. “If something goes wrong, don’t wait for us. Just end this.”

-:-

El thought she was staring at her death.

She raised her hand with a scream and held them up, desperately trying to hold that monster back.

A tentacle lashed out to try and grab her. She lifted her other hand to meet it. It stopped, pushing against her power.

_She didn’t know how much she had left in her._

She could hear Mike screaming. She gave a cry and ripped her hand down, breaking off the claws from the tentacle.

The last of the fireworks exploded above her. The monster launched a fresh assault. She raised her hands to meet it, but it was so strong…

And she was so, _so _tired…

Her knees buckled under the pressure. She let out a desperate scream.

She didn’t know if she could hold out against this.

-:-

Hopper felt the punch land across his face. The Russian bastard grabbed his shoulders and shoved him against the railing. He was pushing his head closer and closer to the machine… Hopper could feel the heat from here, burning against his scalp even though he was still yet to touch it…

Everything changed.

Something ploughed into the side of the Russian. Hopper recovered his footing to see the Harrington kid charging into the Russian, sending them both sprawling towards the Gate.

But the blow had carried Steve too far. He rolled further down the causeway, landing on his front looking at the Gate. He rolled over onto his back to see the Russian standing over him, startled by his sudden appearance and all the more deadly for it.

But charging at the man had taken more out of Steve than he could afford. His broken ribs hurt, _god did they hurt_, and his left hand was in such agony he couldn’t hold a pencil, let alone hold back a punch.

Suddenly, Hopper appeared over the Russian’s shoulder, grabbing him from behind and throwing him sideways towards the machine.

“See you in hell,” the police chief growled, and he slammed the Russian’s head into the machine.

There was an almighty crash, and bolts of lightning erupted where the Russian had hit the machine. It was like a wall of light stemming at the point of impact.

A wall of light between Steve and Hopper.

Steve scrambled to his feet, looking around, trying to find a way out. Hopper was doing the same, eyes flitting around the room. Steve’s eyes suddenly found Robin’s, looking at him through the glass of the observation deck, and in that moment of staring at her terrified wide eyes, he knew.

There was no way out.

“It’s okay,” Steve said loudly to be heard over the noise.

Hopper looked at him. Saw the resignation in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” Steve repeated.

“Kid-”

“Look after the others,” Steve cut him off. Tears were pouring down his cheeks, but his voice was oddly steady. “Especially Dustin. It wasn’t his fault.”

“Hang on-”

“And tell my mom and dad…” Steve continued, his voice starting to shake. “Tell them… I love them… And I think I get it now.”

Hopper froze, stunned into silence.

“It’s okay,” Steve repeated, taking a shuddering breath. “Go. Finish this.”

Hopper gave him one last look, before turning around. He ran back along the causeway and up the stairs. Robin ran towards him.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “What are you – what about Steve?”

Hopper didn’t answer her. She pushed past him, but he grabbed her round the waist.

“We can’t just _leave him!_” she screamed.

“There’s nothing-” Hopper threw her back into the room with a shout. “There’s nothing we can do!”

“Hop!” Joyce protested.

“Joyce,” Hopper’s voice softened in a hope of revealing just how hard this decision was for him. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“_No!_” Robin screamed. She started to run towards the door. Hopper caught her round the waist again, and kept a hold of her, dragging her towards the podium as she fought against him. She was screaming, when words failed her, they devolved into wordless shrieks and screams, tears pouring down her face. Joyce reluctantly fell into step behind him, hesitantly approaching her own podium.

They both put their hands on the keys, neither having the stomach to look at the lone figure in blue down below.

They looked at each other instead.

Wordlessly, together, they turned the keys.


	7. Part 1 Chapter 6: The King Is Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not personally one for listening to music while I read, but if that's what floats your boat, I would recommend listening to 'Wait' by M83 while reading this chapter. I was listening to it a lot while mentally planning a lot of these scenes.

A blinding white light and a force like a wave blew them backwards.

They barely heard the crashing sound, the screech as gears crunched together in ways that they never should have met, shredding themselves. The glass in the windows between them and the machine cracked into a million pieces, but it did not fall out of the frame.

Suddenly, the light faded. Robin dared to open her eyes. She was lying on her front on the floor over Hopper’s outstretched arm. He and Joyce were lying on their backs, blinking blearily.

Without a second’s hesitation, Robin jumped to her feet, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. She couldn’t see Steve through the glass, it was too badly broken. She sprinted out the door of the observation deck and down onto the causeway.

“Steve?” she called out.

There was no sign of him. Nothing.

“_Steve?_” she cried, her voice rising in panic.

Her voice echoed off the concrete walls, giving her only her desperate plea as a response. She looked around the room, taking in the fading glow of the fault line in the wall, the smouldering remains of the machine…

The complete absence of her friend.

“_Steve!_” she screamed into the darkness.

“He’s gone,” a voice came from behind her.

She turned around to face Joyce.

“No,” Robin denied. “No, he can’t be gone, he can’t be…”

“I’m sorry, sweetie…” Joyce said softly. “I’m really sorry, but he is.”

“No,” Robin repeated, her voice so small it was almost inaudible. “No… please…”

Joyce took a step towards her, putting her arms around her and pulling her into a tight hug. Robin buried her face in her shoulder, all sense of control lost, and finally broke down into uncontrollable tears as the world fell away.

-:-

Everything suddenly stopped.

The monster gave an almighty screech and collapsed against the floor. In that second, they knew Hopper had closed the Gate.

The room stilled to utter silence as they all stared at the unmoving corpse of the monster. And, just visible underneath one of those enormous legs, was the unmoving figure of Eleven.

“_El!_” Mike screamed, sprinting towards the escalators. “_EL!_”

He ran down the escalator and practically collapsed on the floor beside her. With a grunt, he pushed that enormous leg away from her and pulled her out by her shoulders.

“El,” he breathed desperately. “El, come on, please be okay…”

She stirred as his fingers lightly touched her cheek.

Mike almost cried with relief. “El!”

“Mike…” she gasped. She was so tired, she’d never felt so exhausted before in her life. She could barely lift her arms as Mike pulled her into a hug, instead resting her head on his shoulder, eyes closed.

“I did it,” she breathed into his ear. “I said I could do it.”

“I know,” Mike replied. She heard his voice shaking and she realised he was crying. “I know.”

She leant into his embrace and slowly opened her eyes. Her gaze travelled round the mezzanine, alighting on each of her friends. Straight across from her were Dustin, Erica and Will. They were all looking at her. Erica looked stunned, but Will and Dustin had identical broad grins on their faces. She managed a small smile before looking to her left.

She spotted Jonathan and Nancy standing on the other side of a pillar holding the crack that had, up until a few minutes ago, been the Gate. Jonathan was looking at her worriedly, while Nancy spared her a grateful glance before fussing over his arm.

Lastly, El looked right, spotting a lone figure with red hair walking slowly round to stand opposite that fateful fault line. She was staring at it, utterly transfixed, oblivious to the tears pouring down her face.

Max couldn’t quite comprehend it. Objectively, she knew Billy was gone beyond her reach. And they were beyond his. But something in her heart couldn’t accept it. As she stared at that crack, she felt an overwhelming sense of grief wash over her.

He was _gone._

“Hey,” a voice said to her side. Lucas. She didn’t look at him, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from that crack in the wall.

She felt an arm slide around her shoulder, felt him pulling her into a hug against his chest.

“He’s alive,” Lucas said, echoing her words from earlier. “That’s got to count for something, right?”

Max didn’t give any sign that she’d heard him.

“It’s okay,” Lucas said softly. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay to feel it.”

Max pressed her lips together, her face starting to crumple as the last vestiges of her wall of control started to crack. As they crumbled to the ground, she fell into Lucas’ arms, and finally let herself cry.

-:-

Sam Owens was blown away by the sight that greeted him as the parking lot became a temporary helipad.

Plenty of choppers were still circling, men in black tactical gear jumping out of them on ropes before moving into the mall. Sam could hear reports blaring over the radio in his hand about finding kids inside the food court… about a large… _“thing… some kind of monster…”_

That was above their paygrade. In fact, it was his paygrade.

_“One of the kids is talking about Russians,” _his radio blared. _“Says they’re here in Hawkins.”_

Ah, yes, the inevitable. He had suspected this was possible from the second he had taken over Hawkins Laboratory. The possibility of the Soviets discovering the Gate and using it to launch an attack on American soil was largely how he’d sold this level of prepared immediate response to the government, it was what had allowed him to invest hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars into having hundreds of soldiers on constant standby. And when they’d received Hopper’s coded message, it was all teams go.

Not that these soldiers knew what they were truly up against. That was still top secret.

A few minutes later, the kids were being led out of the mall. _But of course, it was these very same kids._ Sam recognised a few of them – Will Byers, obviously, and his brother Jonathan and that Nancy Wheeler girl, then there was that dark-haired kid, _Mike_, he thought, and then Jane Hopper, known as Eleven. God, she really shouldn’t be out in public, but then everything anyone ever saw at this mall tonight was going to be confined to the vaults of the Official Secrets Act.

Two of the kids he _didn’t _recognise, however, were frantically speaking to the soldiers escorting them out. Sam could hear the voices carrying from here.

“…It’s that room in the Loading Docks, it turns into an elevator,” the kid with the curly hair was explaining. “But you need a key card to use it-”

“Not a problem, kid, we’ve hacked key cards before,” the soldier replied, clearly quite amused that this fourteen-year-old in a hat and an orange graphic tee was giving him intelligence that was clearly meant for higher ranks. “Go talk to the doctor, he’s running this show.”

At the mention of the doctor, everyone looked over towards him. Sam could see recognition in Will’s eyes first, then saw Jonathan and Nancy realise, and lastly Mike and that Eleven girl.

“Of course you lot would be at the centre of this,” Sam said as he approached them. “You’ve not been having any more episodes, have you, Will?”

Will shook his head, but couldn’t get beyond that before the youngest person present piped up.

“Are you going to go and take out those Commies downstairs already?”

“_Erica!_” hissed the other boy he didn’t recognise.

“Hopper’s already down there,” Jonathan said to Sam, ignoring Lucas and Erica’s spat. “We think he managed to close the Gate.”

Sam nodded, before looking at the curly haired kid. “Where did you say the entrance was?”

“There’s an elevator – one of the rooms in the loading docks turns into an elevator – it’s the one that needs a key card-”

“Alright, we’ve got it from here,” Sam gestured over at two of the soldiers that were stood by the helicopter he’d gotten out of. “Look after these kids,” he ordered. “Get medics to look over them, and don’t let them out of your sight.”

With that, he started to jog over to the loading docks, a small army in tow.

It took them less than a minute to hack the lock. Sure enough, as he and what felt like twenty soldiers piled into the room, the second the door closed there was a clunking sound and suddenly the room dropped faster than any of them found comfortable.

A minute later and it stopped.

“Doctor, stand back,” one of the soldiers ordered – clearly the commander of this team. Another barked order and the team moved into formation, guns at the ready, pointing at the door.

The door opened, revealing a deserted corridor. With stealth only brought on by years of training, the team silently fanned out into formation and began to move down the corridor. The elevator gave another clunk as the door closed, before a whirring sound indicated it had moved back to the surface.

They moved efficiently, shining a light into every shadow they passed, one or two occasionally pausing to open a door to a cupboard. Sam walked behind them, knowing that they would lay down their lives to protect him in an instant. He wasn’t about to jeopardize their potential sacrifice by insisting he go first. This was what they were trained for. He was there for the Gate.

They approached a corner in the corridor. The soldiers froze at a hand signal from the commander. Sam stopped too, and realised there was a sound coming from round the corner. A soft sound of wheels as they squeaked against the floor. The gentle hum of an engine – not a big engine, but one that would power a golf cart or something similar.

At another hand signal, the soldiers all pressed against the wall. Sam was ordered back further along the wall away from the corner with a signal that he didn’t need military training to recognise as the universal sign for ‘shoo’. Sam glanced over at the commander as he raised three fingers.

The engine was getting closer.

_Three – Two – One – GO!_

The team moved in unison, fanning out over the corridor, guns raised, shouts bellowing.

_“Get out of the vehicle!”_

_“On the ground!”_

_“Drop your weapons!”_

_“Hands in the air!”_

“Americans!” Sam heard a familiar voice bellow. “We’re Americans!”

Sam threw caution to the wind as he heard that voice. “Hold on!” he yelled. “Hold your fire!”

He ran out to the opening of the corridor, moving between the soldiers and coming out to see –

Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers were knelt on the floor beside a red cart.

“Jim!” he exclaimed.

“Hey, Doc,” Jim replied. “You got my message, then?”

A nod from Sam was all it took to get the soldiers to lower their guns.

“Is it just you two?” Sam asked as Jim and Joyce got to their feet.

“No, we, uh…” Jim gestured towards the cart. “We’ve got a guy out cold and a kid in shock in the back. Both American.”

There was something off about how Jim explained it. He seemed… oddly brittle.

“You’re not far from the elevator,” Sam said as Joyce went to open up the back of the cart. Two of the soldiers offered to help with – _was that Murray Bauman? _– as Joyce helped a teenage girl in a sailor’s outfit out of the cart. The girl seemed like a strong breeze would knock her over.

“These guys will escort you back up,” Sam said, before dropping his voice as everyone moved out of earshot. “What happened? You guys closed the Gate, right? Why do you all look like you just lost a fight?”

“We closed the Gate, yeah,” Jim explained. “But…”

“But?”

Hopper took a deep breath. “We lost someone,” he explained heavily. “A kid. Couldn’t have been older than nineteen. He helped out the other kids last time.”

Sam’s eyes widened, shocked. “But… I’ve seen you lose people before, I’ve never seen you like this-”

“That’s because this time is different,” Jim explained, giving Sam a dark look. “This time… I made the call to leave him.”

-:-

Nancy had a theory, because of course she did.

“When we were in the hospital,” she explained animatedly to an audience with an average age four years younger than her, “we saw Tom Holloway’s body break down and merge with Bruce’s. They came together to form that monster that attacked us in the hospital. It looked like a smaller version of that thing that attacked us tonight in the mall, didn’t it, Jonathan?”

“Er… Kind of, I guess…”

“I think the Flayed all merged to create that thing,” Nancy elaborated. “I think they came together to create that monster. Billy said that he was bringing friends, and then that thing shows up? I think that was all the Flayed.”

“But why didn’t Billy merge with it?” Lucas asked.

Nancy didn’t have a chance to answer before Will suddenly gave a shout.

“_Mom!_”

All theories forgotten, the group started heading towards the loading dock, where Hopper and Joyce were approaching. Joyce saw Will and started to run towards him, wrapping him in a tight hug as soon as she reached him. Hopper, however, gave El a small wave, and the group could see that he was caught up in the mayhem by the elevator.

Murray was being wheeled away on a stretcher, Hopper supervising, giving instructions to the paramedics. Dustin peered through all the people in black, looking for any sign of anyone in a sailor’s outfit. It really couldn’t be that hard to spot –

He finally caught sight of Robin, sat on the kerbside while a paramedic was crouched down, looking over her. He watched as the paramedic untied a scarf that was wrapped around her arm and tied at her neck.

He ran over to her.

“_Robin!_” Dustin called out. “Are you ok – wait, what _happened_ to you?”

She looked up at him and met his eyes with a stare that seemed to span a million miles before reaching him.

It was only then that he realised she was alone.

Dustin wheeled around, half expecting his friend to be on the ground behind him. “Robin, where’s Steve?”

No answer. Dustin continued to look around.

“Steve?” he called.

Nothing.

“Robin,” he said, his brain finally understanding what it had refused to grasp. “_Where’s Steve?_”

He locked eyes with Robin, her eyes sparkling with tears. He saw the truth in her eyes, but he didn’t want to believe it…

“No,” Dustin said softly, as though the simple act of saying it would somehow make it untrue. “No, he can’t be…”

“I’m sorry, kid,” Hopper’s voice came from behind him. “He’s gone.”

At Hopper’s words, Dustin felt the world fall away, as though he was untethered, floating. This wasn’t supposed to happen – Steve was here – he _had _to be – because if he wasn’t – if it was true – then Dustin had left him down there… He had left his friend down there, and now his friend was –

“No…” Dustin said, louder this time. “No – he’s not… You said you’d bring him back…” his voice was rising as he felt tears well up in his eyes. “You told me you’d bring him back, you _promised!_”

Hopper took a step towards Dustin.

“You _promised _me you’d bring him back!” Dustin screamed, any trace of composure gone. “Bring him back, _bring him back!_”

Dustin pushed against Hopper’s chest, sending the police chief back a step. He glared at the man who didn’t immediately act on his demand, feeling tears run down his face.

“Bring him _back!_” he demanded, shoving Hopper’s chest again, knowing it was impossible but demanding it anyway, because they’d made the impossible happen before. They _lived_ in the impossible. And if the impossible didn’t happen, then that meant that Steve – his mentor, his friend, his _brother_ – was gone.

And it was all his fault.

Dustin leant forward to shove Hopper again as he let out an unintelligible cry. This time, Hopper was ready, wrapping his arms around the kid as he fell against his chest with his whole body, collapsing into desperate sobs. Over the kid’s shoulder, Hopper could see the others, the rest of the kids who had realised what had happened. He didn’t think he could bear to look at any of them as realisation gave way to shock, horror, anger…

Grief.

Dustin’s knees gave way with a fresh wave of sobs as he started screaming into Hopper’s shoulder. He didn’t care that everyone was watching, it didn’t matter how the Chief lowered him to the ground. He barely registered Robin reach out her hand to put it on his shoulder. He barely felt the rest of the Party approach and kneel down beside him, putting reassuring arms around him. He didn’t hear any of Hopper’s empty placations muttered low into his ear, because none of it mattered anymore.

Because Steve was gone.

-:-

His eyes fluttered open.

He was lying face down on an uneven floor. His chest hurt, every breath felt like knives were stabbing into his front.

Memories of what had happened came flooding back to him… _Hopper making it to the observation deck… Seeing Robin struggle against Hopper… Turning away from them all to look at the Gate… The terrifying realisation that the Gate was his only hope of surviving… It was too far though… Too far to jump…_

_Deciding to try anyway._

_Running towards the beam of light… Launching himself in the air… Realising the Gate was too far away… He wasn’t going to make it…_

_A force hitting his back… Carrying him forwards those extra few feet… And then…_

Nothing.

He tried to push himself to his feet, before – _SHIT – _he remembered his left hand was completely broken_._

He rolled onto his back and tried sitting up. He managed more successfully to get to his feet slowly, his head still spinning from all the recent blows to it. _Jesus, he needed to stop making a habit of that…_

He was facing the wall – the same wall the Gate had been blasted into. He walked up to it, the only remnant of the Gate being a hairline fracture in the concrete. He ran his fingers over the small crack before leaning his head against the wall.

An unstoppable wave of sadness and longing crashed over him. Tears started to form in his eyes as he realised just what this meant.

He was probably never going to see his friends again.

He was jolted out of his reverie by the sound of an unnatural howl far away. He turned around to face the reality of the situation, the place he had ended up.

He was stood in the Russian base, only it wasn’t. Thick black vines clung to the wall. Huge holes – tunnels – were dug into the wall, ten at least, so terrifyingly familiar from last year when he had ventured inside one, all converging on this one point. White flakes drifted through the air like snow, or else ash in a fire. Whether it was his shattered ribs or something else, he was finding the air feeling thicker than normal in his lungs. Stood with his back against the wall, Steve was facing this strange new world.

The Upside Down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends part 1! I've got no idea how many chapters this beast is going to end up being, but I can tell you that I've planned a plot that breaks up neatly into four parts. This is definitely the shortest part in terms of actual time spanned in the story, clocking in at only a few hours, but who knows how long everything's going to end up in terms of writing and word counts and chapters etc.
> 
> Also, thank you all so much for all your positive feedback! I'm blown away by the response I've had to this story. I'll be honest, a lot of these rewrites up until now were essentially to set up an awful lot of new stuff and ideas while also putting people into the Upside Down who need to be in the Upside Down as opposed to dead (naming no Billys), and I've been trying to do it in such a way that didn't feel overly contrived or else like a massive Deus Ex Machina. It was also a surprising amount of fun (literally) torturing poor old Steviekins but hey, isn't that what fanfiction is all about?


	8. Part 2 Chapter 1: Another Day, Another NDA

It was freezing.

His body was taking everything in slowly. First, he accepted the sight before him. The overwhelming reality that he was in the _Upside Down_, he spent too long pressing himself into the wall, just trying to look around and take stock of his surroundings.

The next thing that hit him was just how cold it was. He remembered Joyce saying about how Will – or more accurately, the Mind Flayer – liked it cold, and if this was where it came from, Steve didn’t have to think much about why. The cold bit against his bare arms and legs, at his exposed neck and chest, and sent shivers through his body. He didn’t exactly welcome the shivers as they jolted against his broken ribs and shook his shattered finger.

As he tried to take a deep breath in, he was struck by how damp the air smelt. It was heavy and humid, and breathing it in felt like trying to breathe in treacle. It wasn’t just damp, though, it smelt like an odd combination of chemicals. It reminded him of the smell of the science labs at school, only much, much stronger.

The final thing he noticed was just how _quiet_ it was. The howl in the distance had faded, giving way only to the kind of silence that pressed down on his ears. It was quiet enough that he could hear a soft ringing in his ears, the air dancing on the very hairs inside his ears that detected sound. He’d never heard such silence before.

Taking it in, Steve realised he had to move. He had to go somewhere and find water, or whatever was closest to water here, find a way to survive. It was either that or stay here, and either starve or die of thirst or whatever, or else wait for _something_ to find him, whichever happened first. And he’d met the things that were likely to find him here.

He looked around at those tunnels. They seemed like the most obvious route out of the basement. Picking one, he started to climb.

-:-

He’d never thought he’d ever say this, but thank god for Doctor Sam Owens.

The official cover story was a fire. Any deaths were attributed to the catastrophic fire caused by a gas explosion or some other bullshit that wasn’t important to Hopper. The sudden extinction of certain families such as the Holloways in the explosion at a time when the mall should have been closed and completely empty was attributed to the slightly unbelievable excuse that the Hawkins Post was doing a feature on how the introduction of Starcourt had changed the landscape of the town, and on that evening they were interviewing people of all ages in the mall itself when the explosion had happened.

A terrible tragedy, but an accident nonetheless.

There was, of course, the complication that most of the people hurt in said explosion had injuries that told a very different story. For example, the gunshot in Robin Buckley’s shoulder.

Sam Owens had an answer for that. He had asked for the federal government to build a military hospital not far from Hawkins Lab – not on the site, _god no, _he wasn’t going near there ever again if he could help it – but nearby, just in case. It proved that this new military hospital was actually much closer to the mall than Hawkins General, so Doctor Owens conveniently suggested to the paramedics that he could radio ahead and send anyone with serious hospital-requiring injuries there. The doctors there were all consigned not only to doctor-patient confidentiality but also to the Official Secrets Act. They knew not to ask questions.

Once at the hospital, Doctor Owens handed out the now-usual round of Non-Disclosure Agreements. Robin had now suffered a broken shoulder courtesy of a bit of falling rock, the claw marks on Jonathan’s arm were now burns hidden under a dressing, and Murray had been knocked out cold in the initial blast.

Robin was required to stay for twenty-four hours, and Murray would need to stay for at least that long once he finally woke up, but otherwise, they were free to go in fairly good time. It was definitely an improvement not having to sit through the general triage. Hopper had called the kids’ parents as soon as they’d got to the hospital to let them know where they were – at least, he’d called about the ones that had made it out.

Joyce drove Mike and Nancy home in addition to Will and Jonathan. Following the revelation that Steve had told the Russians about Will, Hopper had offered to let her, Jonathan and Will stay for a couple of nights, just until they could be sure that all the Russians had either been captured or else had otherwise left Hawkins. The situation with Dustin was a little more complicated – Claudia Henderson had sounded absolutely hysterical over the phone and Hopper had no idea of how to get her to agree to go into hiding for a couple of days without reading her in, which Sam Owens was strongly against. The message was clear: the less obvious disruption, the better.

So they’d settled on a couple of soldiers unobtrusively watching the house and hoped they did incognito well enough to avoid Claudia recognising them.

El, Dustin, Lucas, Max and Erica were sat in the Land Rover Sam had lent him before he could request that the Mayor fund a new police-issued cruiser for him – assuming that Mayor Kline remained in office for long enough for Hopper to put in that request. By the sounds of things, following the revelation that Kline had taken a certain amount of money from the Russian government, the plan was to make him the scapegoat for the ‘gas explosion’ after the news broke that he had taken bribes from ‘unlicensed contractors’ in order to have the mall built in Hawkins which had ultimately resulted in the ‘tragic loss of life’ that had occurred that night. This would result in him being taken into custody for accepting bribes and ‘reckless endangerment’ before he would be quietly removed from his white-collar prison to face charges for treason away from the public eye.

Sam’s explanation really was very tidy. He must have been very proud of it.

Max, Lucas and Erica were sat across the back seat of the Land Rover. Lucas was in the middle, Erica leaning on one of his arms, finally asleep, while Lucas had an arm around Max. The redhead was staring out the window, tears silently rolling down her face. She wasn’t the only one. Dustin had ignored the front seat next to Hopper, opting instead to ride in the back. He didn’t want to see anyone’s pitying glances, or have _Hopper_ of all people try and cheer him up. He didn’t want sympathy right then. He just wanted to be alone, and the back was the closest he would be able to get to that in this car.

The sun had just crested the horizon, painting the sky beautiful pinks and oranges, as Hopper pulled up into the Hendersons’ driveway. Claudia had evidently been waiting for Dustin since Hopper’s phone call because as the car crunched on gravel, she came running out of the house, wrapped up in a warm flannel dressing gown.

“Dusty!” she called as he got out of the car. “Honey bun, are you _okay?_”

Dustin didn’t answer her. He really didn’t know how to explain it. He let his mom pull him into a tight hug.

“Let’s get you inside,” she said. “We’ll get you some breakfast and then you can go to sleep. I know it’s been a long night but I’m sure you’ll feel better after that.”

Hopper winced at Claudia Henderson’s misplaced optimism, but Dustin didn’t bother correcting her. Instead, he turned his back on the others and allowed his mother to usher him inside. When they reached the door, Claudia turned around and called back to Hopper.

“Thank you,” she said awkwardly, “for looking after him. For bringing him home.”

The door fell shut behind her, and Hopper was back in the car.

Next stop was the Sinclairs’ house. Mr and Mrs Sinclair had also evidently been waiting for the return of their precious children, and at the sight of Lucas and Erica both getting out of the car unharmed, they launched into the entirely predictable lectures.

Phrases like _thank goodness you’re both alright… what were you both doing there in the first place… why didn’t you let us know where you were… both of you are grounded for a week…_ overlapped each other as they ushered Erica inside. Lucas was much more resistant, walking up to the open back door of the car as soon as he had freed himself from his parents’ clutches.

“Max…” he started hesitantly, rewarded by her looking at him for the first time since they’d left the hospital. “I know this is hard, I get it. I get that… that I _can’t _really get it. But I’ll try. I’ll try and listen if you need me to. Or I can help be something else, something that isn’t sitting at home thinking about it, or whatever – basically, whatever you need, I’m… I’m here, I – I want to help. Just… don’t shut me out. Don’t go through this on your own.”

Max looked at him with that same haunted look in her eyes, like she wasn’t really seeing him. Lucas understood the dismissal, and stepped back to close the car door –

“Lucas!”

He froze at the sound and watched Max scoot across the back seat, before she pulled him into a hug. How long they stayed there escaped them both, but eventually, she slipped back into the car, and gave him a sad smile. He closed the door behind him and followed his parents into the house.

The next stop was the one Hopper was dreading. Susan Mayfield had answered the phone, and hadn’t asked about Billy when Hopper had told her that he was with Max after an incident at the mall and that he would bring her home. When the kids had finally filled him in on what they had done – on what had happened to Billy – Sam Owens had instructed Hopper to declare him dead. Hopper wasn’t thrilled about what they’d done, in fact he was downright furious – _had he not told them not to do anything stupid? _– but that lecture could wait until another day.

He pulled the car onto the kerb outside the house and got out, leaving El in the front seat with the radio on. He noticed Max hesitate, hand frozen on the door handle, as Neil Hargrove came storming out of the front door.

“Where the _hell _have you been?” he snarled through the window at Max. “We get a call at _god knows what time _in the morning saying you’ve been involved in some _incident?_ At the _mall?_ And then you get brought home by the Chief of Police? What were you even doing there? Where the hell was your brother in all of this?”

Hopper stood in front of Neil as Max opened the door, forming a barrier between the girl and her apoplectic stepfather.

“Hey,” Hopper said softly in his low tone that he used to de-escalate rising conflicts while indicating that he wasn’t someone to be messed with. “Hey, Max has had a long night, and there are some things I need to talk to you both about, so why don’t we go inside and we can talk calmly, okay?”

Max slipped past Neil and over to her mom, who put an arm around her shoulder and led her inside. Neil glared furiously at Hopper for another second before following them in. Hopper didn’t bother waiting for an invitation to join them.

Susan got her daughter a glass of water and offered one to Hopper, who declined with a wave of his hand. Max made herself scarce as soon as she could, slipping quietly into her room and pressing her hands over her ears, trying not to hear the conversation that was unfolding in the living room.

“Mr Hargrove, please have a seat,” Hopper indicated to the sofa taking a seat in one of the armchairs.

Neil sat down, not taking his eyes off Hopper. Not exactly easing up on the glare, either. Susan looked worried, particularly by the sudden vanishing of her daughter behind a closed door, and joined Neil on the sofa beside him.

“So what the hell happened to Maxine?” Neil asked accusatorily.

Hopper sighed. “There was an incident at the mall last night-”

“Yes, you said that on the phone.”

Hopper paused for a second at the interruption. “It was a gas explosion,” he continued. “The Hawkins Post was doing some kind of feature there on the mall, and had asked to interview some people of different age groups there when the explosion happened. Max managed to get out okay, but…”

He tailed off, running a hand over his face.

“But what?” Neil pressed angrily.

Hopper sighed and met Neil Hargrove’s glare. “Unfortunately, your son Billy wasn’t so lucky.”

Neil froze, his eyes widening slightly, almost imperceptibly, with shock. “Excuse me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Hopper kept his eyes on Neil’s as he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mr Hargrove. Your son was killed in the explosion.”

Susan gave a soft gasp, putting a hand on Neil’s arm. He shook her off. Understanding the wordless dismissal, she hesitantly got up and went to go and check on her daughter.

“Explain,” Neil demanded.

And so Hopper did. He explained Sam Owens’ neat cover story as best he could, even if the premise was slightly dubious. He explained how Billy was not the only casualty, how the emergency services were working round the clock to recover any and all bodies but how that would take a while, how there was no guarantee with a tragedy this scale that all the bodies would be recovered. He explained that there were support systems offered by organisations with grief counselling, he explained how Max had gone through a traumatic event, and how she was going to need all the support she could get, even if that meant they organised therapy for her. As Hopper explained, Neil Hargrove sat silent, drinking in every word Hopper said and, judging by the deepening scowl, not finding them at all to his taste.

Once Hopper had run out of words to fill the pressing silence, he faded into a few words of condolences.

“Once again, I’m sorry for your loss,” Hopper said, standing up.

Neil finally looked away, staring at an empty beer bottle Hopper hadn’t noticed before now. Now that he took in the surroundings at last, Hopper actually noticed several empty beer bottles on the coffee table. _Shit. Neil was drunk._

“Mr Hargrove?”

“Get out.”

The growl came low and menacing, but so quiet that Hopper barely heard.

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard me,” Neil got to his feet, his voice rising. “I said _get out!_”

“Mr Hargrove-”

“I said _get the fuck out of my house!_” Neil kicked the coffee table to one side sending the bottles wobbling, squaring off against Hopper. “You come in here, telling me _my son_ is dead, and telling me how _I _should be caring for my stepdaughter, how I should be taking her to _therapy_, how I should be looking for goddamn fucking _grief counselling? _Like you fucking _know me?_ Like you know how _I fucking feel?_”

“Mr Hargrove, I know this is difficult-”

“AND I SAID GET THE _FUCK _OUT OF MY GODDAMN HOUSE!”

Neil kicked the coffee table again, this time succeeding in knocking it over. The bottles crashed onto the floor, a few breaking on impact as the coffee table landed on top of them, sending shards of glass embedding themselves in the carpet. Hopper finally decided enough was enough. He nodded in acquiescence.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he muttered, before walking out the front door and back to the car.

It was another half an hour of driving in silence with El, albeit a much more companionable silence than before, before they made it back to the cabin. Jonathan’s car was parked outside, Hopper noted with some relief, meaning Joyce, Will and Jonathan were already there.

“Hop!” Joyce called from the kitchen as he and El walked in. “Come sit down, I made breakfast.”

The astonishing domestic normality of it caught Hopper off guard, as he privately found himself imagining Joyce doing this for him after a long day, when he came home late at night, to find whatever spread Joyce had managed to put together. The only problem was that this time, the thought of eating anything made him feel slightly sick.

Breakfast, it turned out, was Eggos. Somehow, Joyce had managed to upgrade it not just with piles of syrup, but also by digging out some fruit that she’d cut up into small pieces and set in a bowl with a spoon in the middle of the old table. Hopper wasn’t aware that he’d even had fruit in the house – perhaps Joyce had stopped by a shop.

While the others found places to sit on armchairs and the sofa and tucked into the meal – none more enthusiastically than El – Hopper poked the fruit around his plate at the table with Joyce. He managed a mouthful of fruit, but that was about it. He was thinking… thinking about the rest of the things he had to do today.

“Something wrong, Hop?” Joyce eventually asked.

“What?” Hopper jolted out of his reverie. “Oh – uh, yeah, I’m just… I’m not very hungry…”

Joyce gave him a sad but understanding smile. There was too much _knowing_ in that look.

“Uh… I’ve got to go…” Hopper finally stuttered out. “There’s… there’s something else I’ve got to do.”

El looked up, slightly indignant.

“I won’t be long,” he reassured her, putting a hand on her shoulder as he passed her. Jonathan and Will were looking at him questioningly, but Joyce, with her _goddamn mind-reading abilities_, was still giving him that knowing look. Sometimes he wondered if she didn’t have superpowers like El.

Hopper picked up the car keys and walked out and got back in that car.

He drove slowly. He knew he had to do this _soon_, putting it off was only going to increase that knotting feeling of guilt in his stomach, and if he didn’t do it, someone else would, and if _he _did it, he could control how it was done, but he still didn’t have a clue how to do it.

Hawkins was still almost silent as the sun climbed over the sky. The town wouldn’t be awake for another few hours at least – almost everyone would be sleeping in after spending the entire night at the Fourth of July Fair the Mayor’s office put on every year. The news broadcasters may have picked up the story by now, but Hawkins itself wouldn’t hear about the Starcourt ‘gas explosion’ for a little while longer.

A couple of not-at-all-deliberate wrong turns down one way streets helped put off the inevitable, getting him lost in Hawkins Suburbia a couple of times, but there was only so much he could do, and eventually he arrived at his destination.

The home of the Harringtons.

Hopper was surprised to see a shiny black Mercedes in the driveway. From everything Steve had told him over the years, his parents weren’t home most of the time. He was also sure the kid had told him that his parents were away on business at that moment.

This wasn’t altogether surprising. Harrington Spencer was possibly the biggest law firm in Indianapolis, and following the retirement of ‘Spencer’ six years earlier, Paul Harrington was the sole managing partner. Hopper knew that his wife, Linda, had some role in the company as a figurehead managing finances or operations or personnel or some other big department, which had been Paul Harrington’s way of smoothing over things in his personal life following the discovery of a string of short-lived affairs and one night stands with young, beautiful secretaries and paralegals. As far as gossip was concerned, this hadn’t stopped the affairs, but had certainly reduced them significantly, as Linda Harrington now had a certain amount of pull with the board of directors that allowed her to go on business trips with her husband. And as the leading corporate law firm in Indiana, there were a _lot_ of trips to New York.

Hopper pulled up into the driveway behind the black Mercedes and went to knock on the door.

After a moment long enough to make Hopper wonder if he’d been mistaken about anyone being home, Linda Harrington opened the door. She was wearing an elegant mid-length A-line dress – _thank you Joyce for teaching him what those were –_ and her perfectly dyed blonde hair was done up in a neat bun. Much like just about everyone else, she’d clearly been out all night, because nobody in their right mind would look that well-groomed at 6:45am.

“Chief Hopper,” she said with a slightly surprised smile. “Come in, please.”

He followed her inside, and saw three large suitcases stacked up by the stairs.

“You’re lucky you caught us,” she explained as she led him through to the enormous living room. “We just got home about half an hour ago. We had business in New York – we were meant to get back last night, but when we realised that the office there had such excellent views of the fireworks, we decided to change our flight to an overnight one so we could watch them.”

She gestured to one of the armchairs casually as she drifted past them, before calling out for her husband. A second later, Paul Harrington emerged from a door in the far corner of the living room.

“Chief Hopper,” Paul said with that same tone of surprise that his wife had had when he saw him. “I’m surprised to see you here, what can we do for you?”

Paul had clearly just caught sight of the pile of pizza boxes on the coffee table in front of Hopper as he walked over.

“Sorry about the mess,” he said. “We’ve been away for a week and our son, Steven, evidently hasn’t heard of a trashcan.”

Hopper closed his eyes for a fraction longer than a standard blink at the mention his name. “Actually… it’s about Steve that I’m here-”

“Oh, god, he hasn’t been _arrested_, has he?” Paul interrupted. He turned to Linda. “I swear to god, I told him, one more disaster and I’m cutting him off. I _told_ him he had to learn some responsibility-”

“Mr Harrington, your son hasn’t been arrested,” Hopper cut off Paul’s tirade. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

Paul and Linda sank into the Chesterfield sofa across from the armchairs, and Hopper felt a sense of déjà vu. At Hopper’s words, Linda looked worried. Paul was trying to keep that mask of professionalism that by now surely must have been a default, but it didn’t quite hide a glint of trepidation in his eyes.

“Mr and Mrs Harrington,” Hopper began to explain. “There was an incident tonight at Starcourt Mall. While Steve and certain others were working late to host a feature for the Hawkins Post, there was a gas explosion that compromised the structural integrity of the building and started a fire. Unfortunately, your son was among those who were killed in the explosion.”

Linda froze at those words. Her posture seemed to crack, held together only by habit that would not last as eventually it would crumble under gravity. Hopper looked at her as she stared at him, completely motionless, and he could swear that behind those eyes, Hopper could see her brain completely shutting down.

Paul, on the other hand, slumped back in the chair. He passed a hand over his face, clearly trying to process what had just been said. When that didn’t work, he leant forwards, elbows resting on his knees with his forehead in his hands, before he finally looked up at Hopper, still rubbing a hand over his face, a disbelieving frown on his face.

“W…What?” he finally managed to gasp out.

“I’m sorry,” Hopper said softly as he finally looked away from the two people in front of him and down at his hands. The sense of formality he adopted felt strange, foreign. He only ever became like this on the rare occasions he gave news of a death to a family.

“No…” Paul said softly. A warning, the first embers of rage crept into his voice. “No… I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it, I-”

He broke off, running his hand through his hair in a gesture that reminded Hopper so very much of how that kid would casually fix his hair. Hopper remembered finding the gesture annoying, the vanity of it grating against his nerves, but now…

Now the reminder just hurt.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Hopper repeated. The same empty words he’d used on Neil Hargrove, on Marsha Holland and her husband, the same words he’d use again so many times before he could finally put this to bed. It felt so _scripted_ in his mouth, like it wasn’t enough.

Especially not this time.

“H-How did he die?” Paul finally managed to stutter out.

“There was an explo-”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Paul snapped. “I meant how _exactly_ did my son die?”

Ah, yes, the million-dollar question. The reason Hopper had been so determined to deliver the news himself. The official story didn’t cover individual causes of death at this stage – no, that was something that would come later. But Hopper had thought about it on the drive over here. The kid had been responsible for saving his life. He knew he had a window to make that known before Sam Owens just turned him into another statistic. And, damn it, it was the least Hopper could do to make sure he was remembered for what he was.

Steve Harrington was a goddamn hero.

“After the explosion, the structural integrity of the building was compromised,” Hopper lied. It was the same line Sam Owens had given him about what the public would be told once the building was condemned. “Your son took it upon himself to ensure that as many people got out through the maintenance corridors as possible, but unfortunately he didn’t manage to get out in time.”

It was the most plausible story he could come up with – deliberately vague on the details, mostly in line with the official story, even if a few details were fabricated here and there. He’d thought about it and ultimately decided that if Sam had a problem with him saying that, he could take it up with Hopper who would deal with whatever consequences the authorities could throw at him.

“Steve saved a lot of lives tonight,” Hopper concluded. “Including mine.”

This had Paul Harrington’s demeanour change in a heartbeat. No longer in shock or confusion, something shifted into horror. Those embers of rage sparked up.

“Hold on, you were _there?_” Paul asked incredulously. “_You_ were there when this happened?”

Hopper hesitated for a second before nodding. “Mr Harrington, your son was a hero-”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t his _job_ to be a hero, was it?” Paul muttered menacingly, not looking directly at Hopper. The danger in his voice was unmissable. He wasn’t shouting like Neil Hargrove, this was calculated. Measured. “No, it was his job to scoop ice cream for spoiled brats. No, being a _hero?_ …Well that’s your job now, isn’t it?”

Hopper didn’t answer, closing his eyes again.

“_Isn’t it?_” Paul hissed.

Hopper opened his eyes, but didn’t meet Paul’s accusing glare. Truthfully, he’d never felt more ashamed in his life than he had about making the call to leave Steve on that causeway. He would take every single word, accusation or insult the man now sat across him flung in his direction. It felt like only a fraction of what he deserved, because honestly, Hopper felt they deserved the truth, even though he knew they couldn’t have it. Hopper wished he could give them more than just a scapegoat, even in the form of himself. Honestly, he wished he could give that kid more than a false memory for his parents to cherish.

“Tell me, _Chief Hopper_,” Paul spat out his title. “While my son was off _‘saving lives’_ or _‘being a hero’_ or whatever _bullshit_ ultimately cost him his life, what _exactly_ were you doing?”

Hopper honestly didn’t know if there was an answer to that question that he could give.

“What _exactly_ were you doing while my son died?”

Hopper fell silent, his mind gone woefully blank. He looked down at his hands, clasped in and around each other.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he finally managed to repeat.

“I didn’t think so,” sneered Paul as he stood up, no joy in that tiny victory he’d managed to win. “I suggest you leave, _Chief_, find some neighbourhood watch meeting to mediate or whatever other bullshit you’re suited to-”

“Did he say anything?” came the small, broken voice of Linda Harrington.

Immediately, Paul’s demeanour changed again. Dropping into the seat beside his wife, he slipped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his chest. Linda hadn’t said a word throughout the entire exchange, she’d not given any indication she’d even heard a word since Hopper had said that Steve had been killed. Tears slowly carved tracks down her increasingly pale cheeks as her body slowly collapsed into her seat, but now she was looking up at Hopper, a desperate, earnest look on her face that broke Jim’s heart more than any of her husband’s accusations.

“Did he say anything? Before he died?” she repeated.

Hopper nodded. “He told me…” Hopper was startled as his voice caught in his throat for what felt like the first time since Sarah had died. “He told me to tell you… that he loves you.”

At Hopper’s words, Linda’s face crumpled. She held it together for another second before her whole body crumbled into her husband’s chest, finally breaking down completely into tears.

Hopper decided to show himself out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've always imagined Steve's parents much more as absent and maybe a bit erratic in terms of discipline rather than outright cruel - kind of not really around enough to parent but when things went wrong trying to be hyper strict to try and compensate and fix the problem. Certainly, based on what little Steve says about them (and reading between the unreliable narrator that Steve is on the subject) it kind of seems like they're trying, but just not really trying enough. TLDR: I definitely think they'd be devastated by news of his death.
> 
> Also, I'm afraid poor Stevie's not going to have very much to do for a little while - at least until some other things are in play. (You'll have to wait and see to find out what, but I'm quite excited!) We're definitely going to be checking in on him just about every chapter, he just may not be doing very much of interest.


	9. Part 2 Chapter 2: Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Steve almost gave up at the sight of the sharp incline.

He felt like he’d been walking for hours. He was certainly thirsty enough. The tunnel had been going at a steep but ultimately manageable incline upwards since he’d first started, but now it veered alarmingly upwards, like a wall cropping up in his face out of nowhere. As he reached it, he looked up to see some kind of light glinting above him. The tunnel wasn’t quite straight up, there was still some sort of slope, but it was definitely more ‘up’ than ‘along’.

He glanced back over his shoulder. The prospect of walking as long as he had walked again only to end up back where he started, to start again at another tunnel which, if he was honest with himself, would probably only end the same way, was not one that immediately enticed him. That said, climbing up that tunnel with his hand in the state that it was did not fill him with a feeling of excitement.

He needed to find something to drink – if Erica was to be believed, he only had a few days before he’d die of thirst. If he was right, if he _had_ been walking for hours, he needed to get out of this godforsaken tunnel and up to the surface where he could only hope there was some water somewhere in some state. It was either that or start trying to drink the goo that was clinging to the vines around the tunnel. And frankly, the last strange miscellaneous goo he’d encountered put him off that idea.

Steve looked up the tunnel. One of the few things that years of basketball had given him was a decent ability to judge distances. The light that glinted up above him was maybe thirty feet up. It wasn’t going to be a fun climb, but it was manageable.

There was nothing else for it.

Using mostly his right hand, he started to climb. When he needed to use his left hand, he did his best to put most of the strain on his thumb and index finger. He nearly slipped when instinctively he tried to grip with his little finger, the jolt of pain that shot through his hand sent him letting go, and he would have slipped down if he hadn’t managed to get his feet underneath him.

He didn’t know how long it took, but eventually, the climb gradually evened out and Steve could finally crawl into a flatter part of the tunnel. He realised as he did so that he wasn’t at the top, but he could see much more clearly now – it was higher, closer to the surface, and the shaft of dim light that he’d seen from the bottom was maybe ten feet above him. But the tunnel negotiated back upwards in a curve away from the ledge he’d found – a fork as two of these tunnels met. In order to get to the slope so he wasn’t climbing up the overhang, he would need to jump the width of the tunnel.

He didn’t know if he had it in him to make the jump, and he decided not to risk missing the jump altogether and ending up back on the floor. Instead, he chose the other option, which was to turn around and walk down the tunnel he’d crawled into.

This tunnel was flatter than the one he’d just climbed out of – a fact for which his legs were eternally grateful. The ground was still rough and uneven under his trainers, but at least he didn’t have to climb. His legs were aching, particularly after scrambling up that tunnel. His arms were in agony. What little of his left hand hadn’t been broken by a Russian with a drill was now cramping up, the strain of his good fingers trying to take away the worst of the effort from his bad fingers.

In all, he was pleased to be choosing the less physically exerting option.

It wasn’t long, however, before he started to feel a strange sense of déjà vu. Granted, he’d been feeling that sense since he’d decided to set foot in the tunnels, but this particular tunnel felt more familiar to him. Maybe it was because it was closer to the surface. After all, it wasn’t like he’d been paying particular attention to the tunnel those little shitheads had dragged him literally kicking and screaming into.

Or maybe it was because it had just led him to a Hub very much like the one he’d set on fire the year before.

Most of the details of that night after Billy Hargrove had punched a concussion into his head were incredibly fuzzy, but the one thing he did remember with terrifying clarity was that Hub. He remembered all the tunnels converging on that one point, he remembered those spore clusters built into the roof, he remembered that unnatural blueish light, he remembered that weird point in the middle where the vines seemed to cluster around a rock. This Hub was very similar. It was almost identical –

It was the same Hub.

Or at least, this was the Upside Down’s version of the Hub. The realisation hit Steve like a ton of bricks. He’d been here, less than a year ago, and he’d burnt it to the ground. Or at least, so he’d thought. But being here meant that he knew where he was. If he could just find the same tunnel he’d used, he could follow it back and try and find that hole Hopper had created and get out. Then he’d be at Merrill’s Farm, and he could find his way back to somewhere he knew. Even if it was the Upside Down’s version.

He glanced around. The tunnel he had just come out of had taken so many twists and turns he had no idea what direction he’d approached from. He felt lost, confused, and felt a feeling of panic rise in his chest.

No. He could do this.

There were two tunnels side by side to each other, with a bit of space between them before the next grouping of tunnels. Did that help orient him?

Not in the slightest.

He thought back to that day in November. The tunnel they had taken that day… he didn’t think it was part of a group of tunnels. It was set on its own, a little way apart from some of the others.

Looking around, there were about three tunnels that matched that description. He walked up to one and peered down it. A little way down, the tunnel veered right.

Steve stepped back, trying to remember which way the tunnel he’d taken last time had gone. He remembered it had turned, but _which way­?_

He decided to look at the next one, to see if it looked any more familiar. This one also veered right. Slightly more helpful if the tunnel he wanted turned left, but it looked no more familiar than the last one –

Something by his foot caught that strange blue light.

It glinted silver, polished, shinier than any of the vines around him. He looked down, and saw it catch the light again. It was hiding under one of the vines…

He knelt down on the ground, but experience – or quite possibly a Darwinian instinct to not die – stopped him from just sticking his hand underneath one of these vines. He needed something rigid, something he could use to move the vine off it.

The only thing to hand was that damn acrylic name badge he had from Scoops Ahoy. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to nudge the vine away. He almost jumped out of his skin when it came to life, but it slowly slithered sideways, revealing that silver object underneath.

Steve’s jaw dropped when he saw what it was. It was his old lighter – the one he’d thrown to set fire to the Hub last year. But that had been in _his_ world, hadn’t it? So how did his lighter get here?

Hopper had said that the vines were spreading from the Upside Down as the Gate grew, but what if it wasn’t the vines doing the spreading, but the actual Upside Down itself? Maybe the tunnels were the Upside Down spreading into his world in a physical way. Maybe if the Gate had stayed open long enough, the Upside Down itself would have spread like a hostile organism, leeching into his world and turning everything into the Upside Down.

Or maybe everything in his world just had an Upside Down equivalent.

It was still slightly blackened by smoke from the fire he’d lit. He was still so woefully clueless, but as he wiped away the soot that had clung to his lighter, he wondered how the soot would have got there if it _hadn’t_ been in the fire. But he wasn’t smart like Nancy, or knowledgeable about fantasy worlds and creatures like Dustin. He wasn’t a scientist, he didn’t have El’s superpowers. Truth be told, he felt completely clueless about the entire Upside Down. He had no idea what made him qualified to come up with theories about what was going on.

Other than the fact that he was here, and they were not.

He quickly tested the lighter, and felt a certain amount of reassurance as an orange flame flickered in front of him. It wasn’t much, but he was no longer totally reliant on what the Upside Down could give him in order to survive. He could set a fire and light it now, and he’d have warmth and a way to cook food and a way to _defend_ himself against whatever this world would throw at him.

He put the flame out and pocketed the lighter. He didn’t exactly have refills of lighter fluid. Deciding he would come up with theories about how it got here at some point later in time, he made up his mind that the tunnel he was stood in front of was the tunnel he’d used back in November.

He felt an extraordinary sense of relief when his hunch paid off – even to such an end that not only did he find what he now called ‘Hopper’s hole’ but also that the rope was still hanging there. It was still a climb, but there was still a rope, which made the entire prospect much more palatable.

Instead of doing a hand-over-hand climb, Steve decided to make life a bit easier for himself and knot the rope at a few key points so he could give himself a foothold. Not really having the energy to do more than three or four knots, he knotted one at about knee height, one at about waist height, one at head height and one (where he had to jump to actually make the knot) at the highest point his hands could reach.

He didn’t often have good ideas, but this was one of those rare occasions. The knots made it easier to actually climb, using what little of his left hand that was actually operational to steady himself while his right hand could actually do most of the heavy lifting – quite literally. With every step he awkwardly made, trying to get a foot onto the next knot up, he cursed that Russian General and that doctor for what they’d done to his hand and chest. He knew that a lot of the breathlessness he was feeling – that he’d been feeling for the last however many hours – was entirely down to those broken ribs. And he didn’t think there was anything he could even do about it.

He reached the top and found himself scrambling on his stomach onto smoother dirt. The vines were still spreading out of the hole, but they actually proved to be a blessing as they helped reinforce the hole so Steve didn’t feel like the entire structure was going to cave in under his weight. Eventually, he managed to get his feet out of the hole, which allowed him enough of a chance to get up. As he finally got to his feet, he took in his surroundings, and felt a renewed sense of horror.

The open world around him was shrouded in thick, blue-grey clouds that gave occasional ominous flashes of lightning. The dirt under his feet felt dry and barren, though the same thick black vines that had been reinforcing the tunnel still crept along the floor. In the distance, he saw the trees and the forest, but despite the fact that he knew, objectively, that it was the height of summer, the trees were bare, no leaves clinging to them. Even the tall firs didn’t have a single pine needle on them. In the distance, he could see the outskirts of Hawkins, so familiar and yet so completely alien in this strange new world.

Still, he had his bearings now, and he knew he needed to find water.

Perhaps if Steve had been paying attention, he would have realised where his feet were carrying him much sooner than he did. He wandered into the forest, still that jarring combination of so foreign and yet so familiar. He found the tracks through the forest that he’d used to wander when he couldn’t have been older than seven or eight, playing games with long-distant friends of his childhood. He remembered running out here with Heather Holloway at one of his parents’ interminable garden parties when they were eleven – _or had he been twelve?_ – before after an extremely stupid game of hide and seek he’d ended up sharing what he would call his first kiss up in a tree. Of course, Tommy had found out and spent months starting chants in the playground of _“Steve and Heather sitting in a tree…” _God, he’d been an idiot back then.

That said, if he remembered right…

Something clicked in his brain, and he took off at a run. His feet carried him over familiar paths, jumping over tree roots and vines alike. His ears picked up the sound before he could see it, and his heart started pounding in his chest –

He broke over a crest and saw, at the bottom of a gentle slope, a small stream that ran through the forest. In his world, the stream was a freshwater stream that ran over rocks. It was perhaps not the cleanest water in the world, but it was perfectly drinkable. There was even a rock in the middle that acted as a convenient stepping stone.

In this world, however, the water quality was anyone’s guess. He noted that the vines that crept along the ground stopped some way short of actually entering the stream. He walked up to the waterside, and thought that, if nothing else, it’d be good enough to wash away as much of the grime that coated just about every inch of his body as he could.

Kneeling down, he slipped his right hand into the water. He was surprised by just how clear it was. It certainly wasn’t as clear as it had been in his world, and even in the dim light, he noticed it had a slightly brown tint, but it seemed clean enough to rub away some of the blood and dirt that coated his hand. Once the worst of it was gone, he cautiously lifted his hand out of the water and pressed his wet fingers against his lips.

The water tasted oddly peaty, and he was sure there was more iron in the water than was normal. But there was nothing else there, it didn’t seem like there was any dirt or other poisonous material in it – at least, nothing more toxic than what was in the atmosphere. He decided that, if he was going to be poisoned by anything, it was going to happen with or without him drinking potentially contaminated water, and frankly, he was too thirsty to care. He cupped his hand into the water and brought what he could to his mouth.

The feeling of cold water slipping down his throat felt like the breath of life to Steve. Not caring how stupid he looked – it wasn’t like there was anyone around to watch – he knelt down on all fours, keeping as much weight on the heel of his left hand as possible, and frantically tried to drink as much as he could. The relief that washed over him felt almost as good as the water running down his throat. Now that he knew this was here, he wasn’t completely doomed to a slow, painful death gasping for water. No, any slow and painful death that he would undoubtedly suffer would be from the poisonous air, or quite possibly starvation. But that was a problem for another time.

Steve fell back onto his haunches once he had finished drinking, taking long, deep breaths as he relished the feeling of renewed life. His eyes closed in temporary happiness, an odd feeling of bliss washing over him. As his eyes started to drift open, he finally took in the sight beyond the stream, and felt his stomach clench uncomfortably.

A little way beyond the ridge on the other side of the stream stood a very familiar sight. He stepped over the river and walked up the ridge, as if in a trance. He’d forgotten how close it was to the stream…

He found himself walking through the gap in the fence and into his garden. Those vines stretched into the empty pool, crawling round the diving board. He noticed, with a sickening realisation as he passed the ladder, that there were still old blood spots on the side of the pool, completely dried out and absorbed into the stone.

_This must have been where Barb died._

He remembered that old photo of Barb, sat alone on his diving board. He’d only seen it once, and he hadn’t really given it much thought at the time, because he’d been far more angry at the time about the photo of Nancy in only her bra, visible from his window. But it made sense – that photo was the last anyone had seen of her. She must have been taken into the Upside Down here, and fought with the Demogorgon in his pool.

A fight she’d ended up losing.

With what felt like more physical effort than any of the climbs he’d made that day, he tore himself away from that spot. He walked away and, without even realising, he wandered into his house.

The empty living room felt almost haunted. His eyes strayed around the room, and for a second, he felt five years old again, terrified of the shadows in the corner of the big, empty space. The vines had made it in here too – some of the windowpanes were cracked, leaving enough space for the black tendrils to force their way inside.

He didn’t stay in the room for long.

He found himself wandering upstairs. He pushed open his own door and found himself staring at the empty room. It was tidier than he had ever seen it – evidently, what his mother called the ‘floordrobe’ and unmade bed didn’t have their parallels here. The lock on the window had been broken here, and the vines had forced it wide open. Black tendrils covered every inch of the floor and crept up onto the bed, closing tightly around his pillow and duvet.

He backed out of his own room and wandered across the corridor, before opening the door to his mom’s room.

Somehow, the worst of the vines hadn’t made it here. The room was oddly bare, the vines creeping up to the door and stopping. The tendrils hadn’t broken through any locks or windowpanes yet, they crept a short way across the floor under the door but they stopped before they reached the bed. The fireplace looked monstrous, with vines creeping out and towards the mirror that hung over the mantle, but, as with the door, they hadn’t made it far into the room.

Steve walked over to the bed and ran his hands along the pristine, empty sheets. His eyes felt oddly wet as he walked around it, feeling a thick layer of dust gathering. He didn’t know why this room was so empty, and he found that he didn’t much care. This was his _mom’s _room – the place he’d always gone when he was a small child to escape from the monsters in his closet.

For some reason, this room brought the enormity of his situation back home to him. He’d found water, he’d found a lighter, he’d found a way to survive, but for _what?_ Was it too much to hope that the Gate would open again and he could find a way to go home? Was it _wrong _of him to hope that? To expose his friends and family to those very threats that he’d been prepared to die to stop?

He settled down on the far side of the bed, tears slipping down his face. He had no way of knowing that, back in his world, his mother was lying on the other side of the bed, staring blankly at the empty space beside her.

_What was he going to do?_

-:-

It only took sixteen or seventeen phone calls from Paul Harrington to Hopper’s office over the course of the next thirty-six hours for Sam Owens to come up with an official ‘body’.

By this point, news about the fire had spread throughout Hawkins, and it was all anyone could talk about. Paul had received at least six oven-baked lasagnes in various ceramics. He’d also heard about the Holloways and felt another blow of grief. The Holloways had been old family friends – to lose them all in one night wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

The Department of Energy had launched an official enquiry into the fire. They agreed with the authorities that the cause had been a gas explosion but declined to comment any further than that. Not that the statement had stopped the rumours – the blame lay with everyone from the Mayor to the Department of Energy to a secret invasion by Russians, depending on who Paul was speaking to at any given time. He’d even heard someone blaming it on an alien invasion. Paul didn’t believe any of them. Honestly, one tragedy had the whole town going crazy.

Linda had barely moved since she’d heard the news. After she’d completely broken down after Chief Hopper had broken the news, Paul had carried her upstairs and put her down on the bed. He hadn’t managed to sleep himself. He was pretty sure Linda hadn’t, either. She just lay there, facing away from the door, her eyes glassy as she stared into space. Paul had tried to make her eat dinner – one of the oven-baked lasagnes had come in handy – but when he’d taken it up to her, she didn’t even move. He’d left her to it and came back to it a few hours later to find it stone cold and completely untouched.

Now, however, Chief Hopper had called to say they’d finally identified Steven’s remains. He suggested they come to the morgue in the morning – it was just after six in the evening, and the coroner would be heading home. Paul, however, had insisted that they stay open, even going so far as to offer to pay the coroner or whoever would be there for their time. He wanted to see this tonight.

He went up and knocked on the bedroom door. Linda gave no answer, which didn’t surprise him in the slightest. He pushed open the door and walked in.

“Chief Hopper called,” Paul said.

No response.

“They’ve identified Steven,” he continued.

Nothing.

“I’m going to go and see him,” Paul said, trying to ignore the way his stomach twisted at the way he spoke about it, like his son had just moved out rather than lost his life. “I’ll probably be an hour, do you want to come?”

Silence.

“Okay then,” Paul muttered quietly. “I’ll see you when I get home.”

Paul started to close the door behind him –

“Wait,” came the soft murmur, so quiet he almost missed it.

Paul turned around. Linda turned her head around. She was still in that dress she’d been wearing since she’d gotten on the plane – hell, now that he thought about it, she’d been wearing it to the drinks they’d hosted to watch the fireworks, she’d been wearing it to meetings for the full business day beforehand.

Linda rolled over and sat up wordlessly. She had none of her usual grace and poise that only seemed to matter to the extremely wealthy. Her hair was coming out of her usual bun, flyaway strands clinging to her face. She bent down to get her shoes and slip them onto her feet, before standing up and silently following her husband. Paul slipped an arm around her shoulders and she gratefully leant into his steadying hold.

The drive to the morgue was silent. Somehow, that made it seem even more endless. Eventually, though later he wouldn’t be able to remember how for the life of him, he pulled up outside the morgue, to be greeted by Chief Hopper.

“I offered to stay,” Hopper explained. “The coroner couldn’t stay, he had something at home, but Doctor Owens, who’s with the Department of Energy, is here.”

Hopper led the two of them inside, where they met a short man with curly grey hair. He gave them a warm smile as he held out his hand to shake. Paul took his hand, but couldn’t bring himself to return the smile with anything more than a stony stare.

“Sam Owens,” the man introduced himself. “I’m handling the Department of Energy’s inquiry into the incident that occurred at the mall.”

Paul managed a curt nod. Linda just looked vacant, completely elsewhere.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Dr Owens said. “I wish I could offer you something more, but I’m afraid what I have to say may make this harder.”

Paul tilted his head a fraction, his stare only getting darker. Dr Owens offered them a seat on a stiff leather couch in the reception area.

“We’ve positively identified your son’s remains,” Dr Owens said. “But I must warn you, due to the nature of this tragedy, your son’s remains, like many others, can only be identified through dental records.”

“W-what the hell does that mean?” Paul asked, frowning.

Dr Owens sighed, looking down into his lap before answering. “It means your son’s remains are unrecognisable.”

Linda, who hadn’t given any indication that she’d been listening, finally stared directly at Dr Owens. Her eyes were wide, shocked.

Paul put a hand on her arm, before finally asking Dr Owens to give them what they came for.

“Let me see my son.”

Dr Owens nodded curtly, before standing up and leading them into the morgue itself. There were four tables in the room, each occupied by what Paul could only assume were bodies under white sheets. Dr Owens led them to the table furthest from the door.

“I warn you,” Dr Owens said gently. “This is going to come as a shock.”

Linda stayed silent, staring down at the white sheet, clearly trying to hold back tears. Paul felt a heavy sense of trepidation in his stomach as he looked down at the sheet that was covering his son. He gave a small nod, and Dr Owens lifted and folded back the top of the sheet.

Linda let out a trembling gasp of shock at the sight. Paul closed his eyes, but couldn’t erase the image that was burnt into his retinas – an image that would haunt his nightmares until his dying day.

What he was told were Steven’s remains was in fact a charred skeleton. Eyeless sockets stared up at them, teeth leering at them in a terrifying grin. What might have been burnt flesh still clung to the skull and neck, but it was all blackened by fire and charred beyond recognition.

This could not be their son.

“No…” Linda finally gasped. “No, no, no, it can’t be, no…”

“I’m sorry,” Dr Owens said softly.

Her hand gently reached out towards what was once his face. She wanted to touch it, to feel it for herself, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. She pulled her hand back to her chest and folded herself into her husband’s arms. Burying her head in his shoulder, she let herself sob. When that wasn’t enough, she screamed. She didn’t care that Dr Owens was there, she didn’t care about Chief Hopper standing awkwardly in the corner. She didn’t care about Paul’s hand gently stroking her hair, rendered speechless by the horrific sight before them. She didn’t even care when he rested his own head on her hair, the slight damp feeling against her scalp the only indication she’d ever get of his tears.

-:-

“So was it actually him?” Hopper asked.

He and Sam were sat in a booth in the bar, small measures of bourbon in front of both of them. The Harringtons had eventually left, Paul practically dragging his wife out of the morgue and back into the car. After that, Sam had locked up the morgue and found somewhere that would serve them the strongest drink they could find.

“What?” Sam asked.

“The kid. Was that actually him?”

“Oh – er, no,” Sam replied. “We looked, but there weren’t any bodies in the main lab. That was actually a Russian soldier or something we found in the corridor outside.”

“Why did you show them that, then? Why not just tell them that in all the chaos his body was unrecoverable? In an accident like this, it’s understandable.”

Sam gave a mirthless chuckle. “Jim, the Harringtons aren’t rational like us. They have money. They’re not used to being told ‘no’. You go to them and tell them that their kid’s dead but his body can’t be recovered, they’re going to launch a full scale inquiry of their own before we can have dinner. You saw what happened with the Hollands, they mortgaged their house and hired Murray Bauman who basically destroyed our entire operation. Now imagine a family with the Harringtons’ resources. They don’t just have the money in this town, they _are_ the money. They’ll get all those fancy lawyers down here and they’ll subpoena just about every bit of paperwork that’s ever existed in this town. This whole thing gets busted wide open, and everyone – including those kids – will end up in the spotlight. And that includes your El. So you give them a body to bury. You tell them it’s their kid, you let them grieve, you let them move on.”

Hopper sipped at his drink. “I told them their kid was a hero.”

Sam nodded understandingly. He’d been surprisingly mellow when Hopper had told him what he’d told the Harringtons. It was surprisingly easy to work into the official story.

“I don’t like lying to them,” Hopper said. “If their kid’s still out there-”

“Their kid’s not out there,” Sam said softly, using that same understanding tone he’d used with Paul and Linda Harrington. “Even though we know we can’t get a body, there’s no way he could have survived that explosion. That kid’s dead. The Harringtons need to accept that. And so, by the sounds of it, do you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So having said that Steve's probably not going to have much to do, let's have most of a chapter dedicated to Steve working out how to survive, because I love following through.
> 
> Now I know we've had some sad moments over the last couple of chapters, but I promise things get moving again next chapter. I mean, god knows it's still going to be miserable, but yeah, super fun times kick off next chapter!


	10. Part 2 Chapter 3: Back In Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was actually really hard to write, and you'll see why when you get to it. This chapter also comes with its own set of trigger warnings, because it tackles a few really difficult things. So we've got trigger warnings in this chapter for:  
1) PANIC ATTACKS - there's a short but quite vivid description of a panic attack.  
2) RACISM - there's a really difficult interaction between Lucas and Neil towards the end of the chapter. There aren't any actual racist slurs used but they are heavily implied.  
3) SEXIST LANGUAGE - there are a couple of nasty slurs used by Neil towards the end of the chapter.  
4) DOMESTIC ABUSE - no actual physical assaults take place but there's extremely intimidating physical behavior and threat of assault.  
5) ALCOHOL ABUSE - mentions of alcohol abuse
> 
> I would recommend treating this chapter as M before proceeding. It's not an easy one to read or write. If, at any point, it does get too much, particularly in the penultimate scene, skip to the very last little -:- thingy I give and read from there. The difficult stuff is mostly character development, so you won't miss any important plot points if you find that you actually can't read it. Please proceed with caution.

The next week seemed to be dominated by funerals.

Steve’s was first. The Harringtons insisted on having it in a church – something that had completely enraged Nancy.

“Steve wasn’t Christian,” she snapped, smoothing down the black dress she’d worn exactly twice before. It was scary how in the last two years, she’d come to own a ‘funeral dress’ that was getting more use out of it than some of her other dresses. And the only times she’d worn it were for her generation. That wasn’t normal.

But then none of this was.

Her mother was, predictably, fussing over her, playing with the loose strands of her hair as she tried to tame it into a bun, while Nancy had given up hope of this funeral being an even remotely fitting tribute to her friend.

“His parents were never around while he was alive, and suddenly Steve’s gone, and they’re pretending like they even knew the first thing about him? If they knew _anything_ about Steve, they’d know he never believed in God or the Bible or any of that crap.”

“_Nancy!_” Karen scolded.

“It’s true,” Mike chipped in from the corridor. “Even _I _know Steve thought it was all bullshit.”

Karen turned around and fixed her son with a glare so furious it made him shrink ever so slightly back into himself.

“You can’t say any of that today,” Karen said sternly to her two oldest children. “Steve may not have believed, or what you see today might not fit your own ideas of who Steve was, but Paul and Linda are his parents. They’re doing what they think is best for him.”

Nancy tutted. “Shame they weren’t around enough to do that while he was alive,” she muttered under her breath.

“_Nancy, I’m being serious!_”

“Alright,” Nancy said defensively. “_Jesus…_”

Karen sighed. “Look, I know this is hard for you,” she softened her tone. “But just remember, you’re not the _only_ people this is hard for. Today’s not the day to go attacking the Harringtons for not being good enough parents.”

“I know,” Nancy said, matching her mother’s tone. “It’s just… It feels wrong.”

_Speaking of people who this was also going to be hard for…_

“Mike, have you heard from Dustin recently?” Nancy asked.

Mike looked up at Nancy in the mirror as their mom put the finishing touches to her hair before walking down the corridor to get Holly.

“No,” he answered sadly. “I’ve been trying to reach him, but he’s not been answering.”

Nancy nodded sagely. “What about Max?”

“_I _haven’t heard anything, but apparently she talked to Lucas a couple of days ago. Apparently Neil’s been sat around getting drunk on the couch while yelling at Susan for organising Billy’s funeral.”

“Oh?” Nancy asked. “What’s his problem with that?”

“Who knows,” Mike shrugged. “Neil’s a piece of shit.”

“_Language!_” Karen shouted.

-:-

Claudia Henderson felt distinctly out of place as she walked into the church. She’d known Steve, she’d met him when he’d come by the house to pick Dustin up for school, or to take him to evenings at the Wheelers’, or the Byers’, or wherever the kids were hanging out, but he’d never known the family at all. However, Dustin had absolutely insisted on coming, and given that it was the first time he’d actually left of his room in days, Claudia was not about to argue.

It turned out she wasn’t alone in her predicament. Walking into the church, Dustin was immediately called over by Lucas, and Claudia saw the Sinclairs standing with Susan Mayfield, looking just as uncomfortable as she felt.

“Dustin!” Lucas called, breaking into a smile as soon as he saw his friend.

Dustin looked over at Lucas and saw Erica and Max standing behind him.

“Hi guys,” he said awkwardly. He hadn’t seen any of them since Starcourt, and flashes of his breakdown in front of the elevator were all too fresh in his mind. The Party had all got it, but Max had her own stuff to deal with – what with her brother being trapped in the Upside Down.

“How’re you doing?” he mumbled in Max’s general direction.

Max shrugged. Stupid question. “What about you?” she asked.

“About the same.”

The three fell into an awkward silence for a moment before they were interrupted by the arrival of the Wheelers. Mike was pulling at the tie around his neck – he was sure his mom had done it too tight.

“Hey guys,” he said, giving the three of them an awkward smile. “How are you guys doing?”

This was much more directed at Max and Dustin than at Lucas and Erica, and they all knew it. Max gave a shrug, Dustin tilted his head in a noncommittal way. It was a question they’d get asked far, far too much over the course of the next few days, and they were both dreading it.

“I, uh – Lucas mentioned your stepdad wasn’t doing great,” Mike said to Max awkwardly. None of them knew what to say. What _did_ you say at funerals?

“Neil’s being difficult,” Max said dismissively. “Won’t organise anything for Billy but yells at my mom for doing it because she’s not Billy’s family or some shit like that. Spends most of his time drunk. So I spend most of my time in my room.”

Mike tried to look sympathetic. He knew how Neil could be – apparently for most of the last year there’d been a conspiracy in the Hargrove-Mayfield house to keep him from finding about Lucas. Not that it had stopped Neil from hearing rumours that Max was dating a black kid.

Nancy stood a bit away from both adults and the Party, keeping an eye on the door for either Jonathan or that Robin girl Steve had worked with. She knew that the Byers’ were expecting to make an appearance, along with Hopper and possibly El. Sam had suggested another couple of months of El staying out of public sight for a little while longer, but had said they could cover for her presence at Steve’s funeral as being someone who had escaped through the maintenance corridors thanks to him. Sam was probably planning some cover story to explain how she’d end up in Hawkins high school in freshman year despite not having been to either Hawkins Elementary or Hawkins Middle School. It would probably somehow tie into the Starcourt tragedy – Sam seemed determined for just about all his cover stories to have _something_ to do with it.

Nancy had no idea if Robin would make an appearance though. She’d never had much to do with Robin – before Will mentioned her, Nancy hadn’t even known she’d existed. When Nancy had seen her briefly at the mall while getting patched up, she’d looked shell-shocked. Nancy wanted to reach out to her, to let her know she wasn’t alone, that she could talk to her and Jonathan, but she hadn’t seen Robin since the mall.

“Nancy?” came a voice from behind her.

She turned around to come face to face with, of all people, Carol and Tommy H.

“Oh,” she murmured. “Hi.”

There was an awkward silence that seemed to stretch. There were so many things that had gone unsaid between them, things that became so unimportant as Nancy, Jonathan and Steve had gotten so caught up in the Upside Down.

“Look,” Tommy said. “I know we had our differences, but I just wanted to say… I’m sorry for what happened to Steve. It’s… I mean, it’s completely fucked up, to be honest.”

“Oh,” Nancy replied awkwardly.

“You were there, right?” Tommy asked. “What actually happened? I heard Steve got a load of people out-”

“What do you want, Tommy?” Nancy cut him off shortly. “You want some juicy gossip or something? Neither of you have said a word to me since you ditched Steve for wanting to get back together-”

“We didn’t _ditch Steve,_ princess,” Carol said snidely. “He ditched _us._ He ditched his friends for you, and then you go and ditch him to run off with that Byers creep.”

“And for the record,” Tommy pointed out, “I still cared about Steve. We started talking again after graduation. He reached out to me after his dad all but cut him off. Or did he not mention that to you?”

Nancy would later pride herself on her poker face that she used at that revelation. She hadn’t known Steve had been in contact with Tommy.

“Look, I came here to offer an olive branch,” Tommy said curtly. “But I can see you just want people to hate, and I’m not prepared to be hated for what went down between me and Steve. Especially not by _you_. Or your boyfriend.”

Jonathan had just appeared by Nancy’s side, looking wary about joining what he could see was a very charged conversation.

“I’ll see you around, Nancy,” Tommy said. “Or not. I don’t really care.”

With a final scathing glance, Tommy and Carol walked off over to where Steve’s parents were stood towards the front of the church. Nancy looked around at Jonathan and was pleasantly surprised to see El standing with Will, Joyce and Hopper.

“What was that about?” Jonathan asked.

Nancy looked at Tommy and Carol talking with Paul Harrington on the other side of the church. Linda was stood next to them, clearly trying to make an effort, but all too often her eyes seemed to drift off into the distance.

“Apparently Steve had started talking to Tommy again,” Nancy explained.

Jonathan looked surprised. “But… he hated them. I’m pretty sure he called them grade A assholes at least twice a week while he was at school.”

“Apparently he reached out after his dad nearly threw him out,” she explained. “I mean, we weren’t exactly _around_ then, it was just after we started at the Hawkins Post, maybe he needed someone to talk to?”

Jonathan shrugged, but got anything else that he might have said was cut off by Nancy catching sight of someone over his shoulder.

Robin was one of the last people to arrive, clearly hoping to slip in, for the most part, unnoticed. Three or four days in possibly the hottest rumour factory Hawkins had ever produced had turned the fact that she’d worked with Steve in Scoops Ahoy into, depending on who she spoke to, the ideas that she’d been dating him, or that she’d secretly been his lover for most of their senior year, or that they’d eloped and were secretly married, or, in one case, that she’d been pregnant with his child. Robin was incredibly annoyed by constantly having to refute these rumours – she particularly wanted to bury the pregnancy idea – but a small part of her was relieved that they hadn’t glanced upon what she’d confessed to Steve.

That said, just about everyone seemed to know that she’d seen Steve die.

She looked around nervously, her arm set in a white sling that was far too visible in the sea of black. Her eyes eventually lighted on Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers, who beckoned her over with a warm smile.

“Hey,” Nancy said in that warm, delicate tone that everyone was using with her now, as though she might break at anything other than the gentlest of touches. “How are you?”

“You really want to go there?” Robin replied with a raised eyebrow.

“Anything you want to talk about?” Jonathan asked in that same utterly hateful tone Nancy had been using.

Robin simply shot him a look that told him more clearly than words ever could to stop trying. “Shall we sit down?”

The slightly out-of-place group sat down near the back of the church as the crowd of people in black started to move as one towards their seats. A strange hush fell, with most people looking towards the front of the church.

A priest stood up and started talking into the lectern, reading words that most of them agreed Steve had never heard in his life, let alone believed.

“…And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death…”

“This is such bullshit,” Nancy muttered quietly enough that it was only audible to Jonathan.

Scripture washed over the room, and Dustin found himself wondering if he’d ever sat through a situation that was _less_ reminiscent of his friend. He thought about Suzie in Utah – her parents had faith, a very strong unshakeable faith, but Suzie, while open to the idea of religion, was not entirely sold on her parents’ beliefs. Dustin didn’t have an ounce of faith – if he’d ever considered the existence of God, it was quickly dispelled by his discovery of the Upside Down and everything that was in it. It was too much to believe that there were monsters in another dimension in the same world or universe where there was also an all-powerful being in the sky that took you to paradise afterwards if you were good enough and sent you to Hell if you were bad. Dustin knew that Lucas and his family believed, and that Lucas’ own faith had been strengthened by the impossibility of the Upside Down – if there was such a place as there, such a _Hell _as the Upside Down, then there was a possibility that there was a heaven, but Dustin didn’t agree. There was no rhyme or reason to who ended up in that Hell.

So lost in his thoughts he was that he didn’t notice that the priest had stopped speaking. It was only when a shadow darkened the doorway that he felt a jolt in his heart.

A highly polished oak casket was being carried down the aisle. Dustin didn’t recognise any of the pallbearers – he knew that in some cases, the pallbearers would be important figures from the person’s life, but evidently Steve’s parents had opted for professionals from the funeral parlour.

Perhaps Dustin noticed this because he just couldn’t look at the casket itself. But as they set it down at the front of the church, his eyes were drawn to it like a magnet. It was all he could see, the rest of the world fell away, the sound of the priest reading some generic scripture that he’d probably end up reading several times that week was drowned out by a ringing in Dustin’s ears. The room suddenly became too hot – his breath was catching in his throat – he could hear his heart pounding against his chest – the colours were too bright – too bright –

He almost jumped when a hand lightly touched his arm. “Dusty?” he heard his mom say. “Are you alright?”

He didn’t realise he was shaking until he felt his mom’s arm around his shoulder. His imagination was going haywire – flashes of images of Steve lying inside that coffin – of a slowly decaying corpse of his friend – of the flesh half-rotted off his face to expose a hollow skull underneath –

“Dusty, do you want to go home?”

His mom’s voice was disembodied, but it helped ground him. He hadn’t realised he’d closed his eyes until he opened them.

He was leant against his mom’s side. In his periphery he could see Mike, Lucas and Max looking at him. He was sure that on the row behind them, just about everyone else was doing the same.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered into his mom’s shoulder, closing his eyes again. “I can’t do this, I can’t do this…”

He felt his mom nod against the top of his head. He heard her murmuring something about seeing them tomorrow… _Billy’s funeral… _and then he felt her strong hand guiding him as discreetly as possible out the door and back towards their car. He didn’t get in straight away, leaning heavily against the window.

Now that he was out of that church, he found it easier to bring himself under control. He could concentrate on his breathing. He closed his eyes again, and slowly tried to open them, focusing on the wind that ruffled his hair.

He hadn’t remembered feeling like this at Will’s funeral – or not, as it had turned out. In fact, he remembered almost enjoying it, seeing all those people who cared about Will. But that had been because he hadn’t thought Will was dead –

“_Dustin!_” a voice called.

He looked up to see Robin running down the path through the cemetery.

“I… I couldn’t stay either,” she explained, catching her breath as she saw the car. “It was…” she wanted to say it had been too much for her, but that wasn’t right. Actually, the whole ceremony wasn’t right, it wasn’t even close to how she remembered Steve – how she _wanted_ to remember Steve. It… _wasn’t enough_.

Fortunately, Dustin understood. “I know,” he said softly.

He caught sight of his mom looking at him from by the driver’s door, her eyes flicking towards Robin, subtly indicating that she wanted an introduction.

“Oh!” Dustin finally got the message. “Robin, this is my mom. Mom, this is Robin. She worked with Steve.”

Claudia gave Robin a smile over the top of the car.

“Hey, Robin,” Dustin said awkwardly. “I’m probably going to go home, I don’t think I can face the rest of that…”

“Yeah…” Robin said, looking over her shoulder at the church. “I didn’t know him for that long, but I’m pretty sure what’s going on in there isn’t what he would have wanted. Not sure he would have wanted me to sit in my room feeling sad, but then again…”

“Awesome girl like you crying over him?” Dustin gave a small laugh. “Are you kidding? Steve would have _loved_ that.”

Robin smiled with what might have been something that could have been a laugh in another life.

“Hey, Robin,” Dustin said hesitantly. “If you’re just going to be sitting in a room feeling sad, do you want to come over and we can be sad together? Pretty sure we’ve got cookies somewhere.”

“Er…” Robin looked at him, slightly bemused. “I mean… I guess, if that’s alright with you, Mrs Henderson?”

She looked up at the woman who’d been patiently stood through their exchange. Claudia looked pleasantly surprised by this new development – she’d been hoping Dustin would reach out so _someone_.

“Sure,” Claudia smiled warmly. “Hop on in.”

-:-

“I always thought Steve exaggerated what his dad was like, but after what we sat through, it’s like they weren’t even living in the same house,” Robin said, helping herself to another cookie.

“Well, they weren’t really,” Dustin pointed out. “Apparently he spends most of his time in Indianapolis. Got an apartment there and everything.”

They were sat on Dustin’s bed. Claudia had given them a plate of cookies and left them to it, trying to give her own son a bit of space.

“I mean, _god,_ when the priest started reciting scripture, I almost burst out laughing,” Robin said. “I mean, _really? Scripture?_ For _Steve?_”

“God, I almost lost it when I found out it was in a church,” Dustin laughed. “Steve was about as religious as Darwin.”

“Hell of a lot less smart, though,” Robin pointed out.

“Yeah…” Dustin acknowledged. Something occurred to him. “Did he ever work it out?”

“Work what out?” Robin asked.

“That you were the perfect girl for him?”

The atmosphere shifted. Where previously there had been an element of levity about just how wrong the funeral was, this was more serious.

“He never told me if he did,” Robin said.

“What an idiot.”

“No he wasn’t,” Robin said defensively. “Not about that, anyway.”

Dustin clocked that there was more to this story and looked at her enquiringly. Robin closed her eyes. She thought back to that conversation in that room when she’d been tied to a chair with Steve. She remembered how she’d felt, how relieved, how light, how _happy_ she’d felt when she’d told Steve, and when Steve hadn’t told her how wrong it was, or how freakish or how _anything _it was, but accepted that that was who she was, even if her tactics were a bit off.

“He didn’t tell me… because of what I told him,” Robin explained.

“What did you tell him?” Dustin asked.

“I told him how _wrong_ I was for him.”

“What’s so _wrong _with you?” Dustin asked. “You’re literally perfect for him. You’re smart, you’re funny, you can crack top secret Russian codes-”

“Dustin, can you keep a secret?”

“Uh – yeah, Steve told me the secret to the _Hair_. Haven’t told _anyone_ that, not even Suzie.”

That piqued Robin’s interest. “What’s the secret to the hair?”

“Can’t tell you,” Dustin grinned at her. “It’s a secret.”

She glared at him. “Ha hah, very funny,” she shot back sarcastically.

“I know,” Dustin said, still with that smug grin. “So go on, what’s the big secret? What’s so _wrong_ with you?”

Robin took a deep breath. “I told him I was planning on following someone to Nashville.”

Dustin’s eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

“I don’t,” Robin said.

“So what? You’d follow some guy to Nashville on the off chance you’d make it work? That’s insane.”

“That’s what Steve said,” she told him. “But the person I’d be following to Nashville isn’t _some guy._”

Dustin looked confused. “Who _is_ it? Do I know them?”

Robin sighed. “Tammy Thompson.”

Comprehension dawned on Dustin’s face. “Oh,” he said, his eyes widening. He looked vacantly around the room. Pieces of the puzzle slotted into place.

“Yeah,” Robin said.

Dustin suddenly grinned. “So _that’s_ how you didn’t fall for the hair?”

Robin burst out laughing, no small part out of relief. “Yeah,” she laughed. “That’s how I didn’t fall for the hair.”

She tossed her head slightly to one side, making her bob bounce around her face.

“What did Steve say when you told him?” Dustin asked.

“He told me my strategy was way off base,” she laughed. “I think he used the word ‘stalking’.”

“He wasn’t wrong,” Dustin pointed out.

The pair fell about laughing, but thinking about that day in that room jarred at something in Robin. It was like something twisting in her chest, as she found memories of that day physically painful. _God, it had been less than a week ago._

Tears sprang up into her eyes, something that Dustin was quick to notice as she closed her eyes tightly.

“Robin?” Dustin asked, sitting up and putting a hand on her good arm.

“I thought I was going to die,” she gasped. “We both thought we were going to die. That’s why I told him.”

“Hey, hey,” Dustin tried to comfort her in a way so reminiscent of how Steve had spoken to her that day when their chairs had fallen over before he realised that she was laughing. She brought her hand up to cover her face as Dustin got off the bed and crouched in front of her, his eyes so concerned. For a second, she looked up at him tearfully and actually _saw_ Steve before she blinked, and suddenly it was back to Dustin, those curls bouncing around his face.

“They…” she took a deep, shuddering breath, blinking back more tears. “They… _tortured _him… This Russian General – or something – and this _doctor _– they… they ripped out his fingernails – and when that didn’t work, they broke his finger… and when _that _didn’t work, they started breaking his ribs…”

Dustin fell back against his bed in shock. He hadn’t known what had happened there – Hopper and Joyce hadn’t told any of them about the state they’d found Robin and Steve in, and Murray had disappeared back to Illinois.

“They made me watch that last part,” Robin said, looking up at the ceiling. She was shaking. “They tied him down to this… this _dentist chair_… There was a moment – when they were doing that – when I tried to escape – and that was when…”

She gestured at her shoulder. Dustin hadn’t realised his mouth was open slightly.

“And _somehow_,” she continued, “even after all that, he still managed to save my life.”

“How?” Dustin breathed.

Finally, Robin managed to look at him, tears streaming down her face. “This Russian soldier started shooting at us when Chief Hopper was going to close the Gate,” she explained. “Steve pulled me under a table. And then… when Chief Hopper got the fight away from us… When he got the Russian out of the room and towards the machine… Steve went to help… And he never came back.”

Dustin closed his eyes, feeling tears threatening to come out again. This had been far too common an occurrence since Starcourt.

“I’m sorry,” he finally managed to breathe shakily. “Robin, I’m so sorry, I – I should have gone back for you, I should have tried to get you guys out of there – instead of going back to the mall and waiting for Hopper – I should have tried to help you-”

He broke off, a sob welling up in his chest.

“God, it’s all my fault,” he continued, looking up at the ceiling again. “I should have tried to go back, I should have listened to Erica, I _should have tried to get you home…_”

“Dustin…” Robin started.

“I’m so sorry, Robin,” Dustin said, looking her straight in the eyes. “I’m so sorry… You never should have been a part of this… _Steve_ never should have been a part of this… I’m so sorry I dragged you both into this… I’m so sorry I left you down there… You never should have had to go through that…”

Robin reached out and pulled him into a hug.

“It’s all my fault,” Dustin sobbed. “It’s all my fault that he went through all that – it’s all my fault he was down there in the first place – it’s all my fault that he died.”

“It wasn’t your fault-”

Dustin pulled back away from Robin. “Yeah, it was,” Dustin protested. “I got him involved – I asked for his help – it was _my_ idea to get into that room – it was my fault he was down there… _I _killed him… I killed him… I killed my _friend_…”

Dustin dissolved into unintelligible sobs, curled in on himself against the bed. Robin got onto her knees, and pulled one of his hands into hers.

“Hey – _Hey!_” she repeated a little more earnestly when he didn’t immediately look up. “I’m going to tell you what I told Steve when he started talking like this back in that place. He started coming out with all kinds of crazy apologies just like you are now. You know what I said to him?”

Tears were running freely down her face but she managed to keep her voice steady. She even managed a small smile.

“Don’t overestimate your importance in our decisions,” she said. “Steve was a big boy. He made up his own mind to help you. He made up his own mind to try and get into that room. He made up his own mind about holding that door to give you guys a chance to get out. And I’ll tell you now, one of the _only_ good things we had going for us in that place was knowing that _you weren’t there._ You made the right call to get Erica out. And… sometimes, _shit happens_. Shit happens, but we can’t blame ourselves for every decision we’ve ever made. Sometimes, shit’s going to happen, no matter what. All you can do… is make the right call for _you._ And honestly, by going up to the surface, you made the right call for_ everyone._ We honestly thought we were going to die in that room. But, because you went and got Chief Hopper, that didn’t happen.”

Dustin managed to look up at her. He couldn’t stop the tears from coming any more than she could. But there was something – some comfort they found in each other’s company. Each seemed to the other like the only person they could talk to about what had happened without feeling embarrassed – the only person who _understood_. And as they eventually fell back into a comforting hug on Dustin’s floor, that was all they could ask for.

-:-

Dustin managed to make it to the wake of Billy’s funeral.

It had been distinctly more uncomfortable in that room. In another scenario, it might have been uncomfortable because they knew that Billy wasn’t dead, but rather trapped in the Upside Down. It could have been uncomfortable because while they came to support Max, all of them had loathed Billy. It could have been uncomfortable because Hopper and El hadn’t come for the sake of keeping El safe, or because Robin hadn’t made it to this particular funeral. But it wasn’t any of these reasons. No, the reason it was so uncomfortable had everything to do with the most volatile element present – Neil.

Max had stayed awkwardly by her stepfather’s side, greeting them all with a very wooden line about thanking them for coming. She had given Lucas and her parents a forced cold greeting that, while they understood, set them on edge. The Sinclairs knew about Neil. He was the reason they’d made Erica stay with a friend.

At the wake at the Hargrove-Mayfield house, Max managed to slip away from her mom and her stepdad. She came over to where the rest of the Party stood with Nancy and Jonathan. Their parents were mingling to one side over glasses of wine, feeling just as out of place then as they had done at Steve’s funeral the day before.

“Hey,” she managed quietly.

There were some awkward nods of greeting.

“Hey, Dustin, are you alright?” she asked. “When you left yesterday, you looked awful.”

Dustin gave a non-committal shrug. “Yeah, I just… the whole thing got to me… Robin left not long after, so we went back to mine, and we talked. It was… actually really helpful.”

She twisted her mouth into an awkward but sympathetic smile.

“If it helps,” Mike said, “Nancy and Jonathan bailed on the eulogy. Nancy got really upset by some stuff Steve’s dad was saying.”

“It was such _bullshit_,” Nancy snapped. “He started talking about how Steve was ‘the perfect son’ and all that crap – after spending _years_ telling Steve how much of a disappointment he was.”

“Nance, it’s fine, it’s okay, we don’t need to do this again,” Jonathan murmured.

“How are you?” Dustin asked Max before Nancy could start again. Same stupid questions as the day before.

Today, though, Max shook her head, shooting a glare over her shoulder in Neil’s general direction. “I… I can’t take much more of this,” she muttered. “He’s been drunk all day, and now he’s downing wine like it’s a fucking keg stand or something. And he’s being completely unbearable. I’m sorry about earlier, by the way,” she turned to Lucas. “Tell your family I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Lucas said quickly. “We get it, we understand, we can put up with it-”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t _have _to put up with it,” Max all but snarled. “You shouldn’t have to tiptoe around Neil being a-”

Exactly what Neil was being was something nobody ever found out, because at that point, a hush started to fall over the room at a commotion going on involving the very man they’d just been discussing.

Neil was swearing quite audibly while continuously filling and draining his glass using the bottles of wine stood on the white covered table. Susan was flitting around him, trying to get the bottle that was in his hand away from him.

“…Get your _fucking_ hands off me, Susan…” he slurred, turning his back to her and pouring himself another glass of wine.

“Neil, come on, you’re making a scene-”

“Oh, _I’m_ making a scene, am I?” he snarled. “Let’s talk about you, shall we? This whole thing… this whole ‘party for Billy’ or whatever… Isn’t that all about making a scene?”

“Neil, please give me-”

“And you know what?” he raged. “You don’t have… _any right…_ to do any of it.”

“Neil-”

“You and Maxine go around… pretending he was your family… What a load of _shit…_ He wasn’t.”

Susan froze, looking at Neil, hurt visible in her eyes.

“_He wasn’t your son…_ And you go round, organising all this _shit _for him? All these flowers?”

Susan visibly flinched as Neil swung his hand and sent a vase of lilies crashing into the sink.

“You organise this food, too?” Neil asked, gesturing at the table where plates of canapés sat. “You organise this food for _Billy?_”

Susan stood rooted to the spot, giving a meek nod. She looked on the verge of tears.

“You think he would have _liked_ all this? You think he would have liked all these _fancy sandwiches_… and _little bits of cheese_ on crackers… and all this other crap? Well, you know what?”

Neil swept his arm across the table, trying to displace as much as he could onto the floor with a crash. When that wasn’t enough, he pulled the tablecloth out and shook it, sending glasses and plates onto the floor.

This sparked Susan back into action. She reached forward and managed to succeed in getting the wine glass out of Neil’s hand, cradling it against her chest with both hands.

“Neil, please, you’re _ruining_ it!” Susan begged, sounding close to tears.

“Oh, I’m _ruining it?_” Neil snarled. “What gives you the right to decide what ruins it? What gives you the right to decide how this gets done – what gives you the right, what gives you – I’ll tell you what, _NOTHING!_”

He screamed the last word into Susan’s face, backing her into a corner. Everyone else gathered there stood frozen to the spot, unable to think of anything to do that would defuse the situation.

“_Nothing_ gives you the right to decide any – _Nothing _gives you the right, because you know what? He wasn’t _your_ son, he was _mine!_”

Something in Max suddenly snapped.

“Yeah,” she growled quietly, pushing her way through the crowd towards Neil. “Yeah, he _was_ your son, wasn’t he? And you know what? Billy was a _fucking asshole!_”

Neil rounded on Max. “_Excuse me?_” he spat venomously.

“Max, stay out of this,” Susan begged quietly.

“Yeah, you heard me,” Max snarled. “He was a complete fucking asshole, and everything about him that made him that way came from _you!_”

“Maxine, _please…_” Susan implored.

“His hate, his anger, his violence, all of that was because of _you!_” Max continued.

“I’m warning you now-” Neil started, his tone low and threatening.

“And do you know the _really_ sad part?” Max ploughed on. “The really sad part is that if he’d had a chance to get away from you, he might have had a chance of becoming a decent person! He might have had a chance at being _happy!_ Because you know what, Neil? You’re a goddamn _poison_ in everybody’s life!”

Neil drew himself up to his full height. “You little _bitch!_”

Max didn’t flinch, instead she closed her eyes as he raised back his arm –

She suddenly found herself being pulled back a few steps away from Neil. She whipped her head around to see Lucas holding onto her hand. Her gaze shot back to Neil, for the first time betraying a small hint of fear in her eyes.

Neil’s hand froze in mid-air as he looked with dawning comprehension and disgust as he finally realised who Lucas was.

“So _this…_ is your little boyfriend?” Neil said, sounding surprised. “Your little n-”

“_Hey!_” Max snarled. “Don’t you _dare_ call him that!”

“I’ll call him what I like,” Neil snarled. “While he’s under my roof.”

“_No!_” Max screamed. “I won’t let you treat people like this anymore-”

“_Let me?_” roared Neil. “You think you _let me_ do _anything?_”

Neil raised his hand again, but this time, Lucas didn’t settle for just pulling her back. He pushed her behind him, and looked up at Neil defiantly.

“Lucas!” he heard his mom call.

“Don’t hit her,” Lucas said quietly.

“Lucas,” Will said softly. “Lucas, come back over.”

Lucas gave him a burning look before turning his back and taking a few steps with Max back towards his friends. “Let’s go,” he muttered quietly.

“Yeah, Maxine, _go!_” Neil handed down his ultimatum. “Go and don’t come back. Spend your time living with those fucking w-”

“_What,_ exactly?” Lucas wheeled around to stare down Neil. “Go on,” he dared. “Those fucking _what?_”

“Lucas!” he heard his mom beg, sounding upset. But it was what he heard next that truly scared him.

“Lucas,” his dad said in a tone of forced calm that didn’t quite hide a note of real fear in his voice. “Come away now,” he said softly.

It was the hint of fear in his dad’s voice that sent him backing down and going towards his parents again. He didn’t look at Neil again, determinedly ignoring that look of triumph in the other man’s eyes as Lucas felt his dad grip his shoulder firmly.

_This was over._

“We’re going now,” his dad said politely, offering Neil a smile. “Without Max – Maxine,” he corrected himself. “Thank you, both of you, for hosting us.”

It was an incredibly tense silence as Lucas was almost frogmarched out of the house and onto the street. He could feel his dad stay tense as they got to the end of the street. As they turned onto the street where their car was parked, his dad let out a shaking breath.

“Lucas, never do that again,” he said, his tone more serious than Lucas had ever heard it. “I mean it – promise me you’ll never do that again.”

Lucas turned around to see his mom fighting back tears and his dad looking at him with a look that seemed to go right through Lucas and into his very soul.

“Why did you stop me?” Lucas asked quietly. He’d never felt so small.

His dad put a hand on his shoulder. “I stopped you because when we stand up to people like that…” he explained, “people like that use it as an excuse to destroy us completely.”

-:-

Max watched her boyfriend leave with his parents. The rest of the Party looked shocked. She could see the faces of Ted and Karen Wheeler, Joyce Byers and Claudia Henderson look on edge but angry.

“Screw you,” Max growled at Neil, tears in her eyes. “You _ruin_ Billy’s funeral, you go after my _boyfriend_ because he’s-”

“So he _is_ your boyfriend?” Neil cut across her.

She froze at his tone. It was all the confirmation he needed.

“You _filthy little slut!_” Neil growled at her. He took a step forward –

“Hey,” Ted Wheeler suddenly stepped up to the plate, surprising nobody more than his wife. “Hey, let’s just take a second to cool down, okay?”

It was all Max needed.

She pushed past everyone, running through the house and towards the back door. She tore through the garden and out into the trees behind. She didn’t hear Neil’s shouts or Ted Wheeler’s attempts to calm him. She was already gone.

She didn’t know how long she ran for. She didn’t know when she ran out of breath and stopped running. She didn’t know how long she ended up walking for, as she found her way to the main road, and then to the path through what the Party called ‘Mirkwood.’ She didn’t know how long it took her to get to her destination, as she finally found that dirt track, only noticeable from the road if you knew it was there. She didn’t know how long she’d been walking in those ridiculous dress shoes when she finally caught sight of Hopper’s cabin as the sky started to darken.

She knocked on the door, and was greeted by the surprised and confused face of Hopper.

“Can I talk to El?” she said without preamble.

Hopper wasn’t sure what to make of Max showing up at his door in a black dress on the day of her stepbrother’s funeral, clearly having been crying, and, by the looks of things, walking the whole way. But he let her in, and knocked on El’s door.

“El, you’ve got a visitor,” Hopper announced.

“Mike?” they heard a voice from inside the room.

“No, it’s… it’s Max,” Max said softly.

There was a click and the door swung open of its own accord, revealing El, sat on her bed, a Wonder Woman comic spread out in front of her. She had the same confused expression that Hopper had had at the sight of her.

“I’ll give you girls a minute,” Hopper said, closing the door behind Max.

“Something’s wrong,” El said quietly.

Max nodded, her eyes closing, and suddenly the floodgates opened. She found herself explaining everything that had happened that day between Neil and her mom, between Neil and Lucas, she explained how her relationship with Billy had become better over the last few months before he’d been attacked by the Mind Flayer, she explained how she was starting to see the beginnings of a different side to him.

El sat quietly and listened. She didn’t understand a lot of it, particularly why Neil had such an aversion to Lucas, but she listened.

“Can I help?” El finally asked when Max was finished, breathing hard as though the explanation had been a marathon.

Max looked up at her.

“Yeah, that’s… that’s actually why I’m here,” she said. “I need your help.”

El nodded, looking at her questioningly.

“When we were in Starcourt,” Max explained. “You found a way to open up a Gate.”

El nodded.

“You did that… on demand.”

“On demand?” El asked, confused.

Oh – like… whenever you wanted to,” Max explained. “You wanted to open a Gate then and there, so you opened it, and when we put Billy back through, you closed it up again.”

El nodded.

“Look, I know this is a really big thing,” Max explained. “And I don’t want you to say yes unless you feel like you can really do it – really _control _it.”

El looked at her, confused.

“I want to try and open up a Gate,” Max said. “I want to find a way to get Billy out from under the Mind Flayer’s control, and then open up a Gate and bring him home.”

El’s eyes widened at the suggestion. Max looked so tentative when she stared imploringly at her friend, desperation colouring her voice.

“Will you help me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said at the start, this was extremely difficult to write, but it's not going to get any worse than this - or even this bad again. I've been very lucky in that I've never had to deal with someone like Neil. I'm also extremely lucky in that where I live, attitudes like the ones Neil exhibited here seem to have died a long-distant death, but I'm not so naive to believe that they don't exist anymore. Please, if you need to talk, feel free to message.


	11. Part 2 Chapter 4: There Are Worse Hobbies Than Graverobbing

Steve settled into something of a routine.

It wasn’t exactly clear cut when day and night was – the sky was in a perpetual state of black. Clouds would pass overhead but through the gaps in the clouds, the sky was a deep, inky black. Steve hadn’t seen stars, or sunlight, or the moon, or anything that gave him any indication of the passage of time.

So he resorted to his own internal body clock. He would sleep as much as he could in his mom’s bed, and when he woke up, he’d go and find some water. He’d bring as much back as he could using a saucepan he’d found. He’d then boil it as best he could, burning whatever he could find and piling it on top of the stove. The water would cool after a while, when he’d drink it, and then he’d set out to search for something edible.

So far, he hadn’t managed to find anything he’d felt sufficiently confident enough that it was not poisonous for him to eat. He suspected it had only been a few days, but his stomach was constantly hurting. He needed to find something to eat soon.

Steve used his search for food as a chance to explore the Upside Down. The town itself he knew, and after a cursory wander through downtown, he hadn’t spent much time there. What he’d normally do would be to go there first and have a look in one of the shops to see if there was anything useful. So far there had been nothing that he’d found that he thought would be particularly useful in terms of potentially fighting Demogorgons and Demodogs and whatever else the Upside Down would throw at him.

That said, the one thing that had struck him was the complete _absence_ so far of any Demogorgons or Demodogs. He hadn’t actually seen _anything_ in Hawkins. So far, he’d been completely alone.

Not that Steve was complaining.

Steve was hardly in any shape to fight anything. Whatever was in the air was keeping him constantly light-headed. The hunger was getting to him, his left hand was aching – his fingertips were healing but the broken bones seemed to have settled in a state of misalignment, which Steve was concerned about, because while it was hurting less, he was worried that his finger might heal into a state of stiffness that would make it completely unusable.

But that was nothing to how concerned he was about his chest. Every breath he took felt like something was pressing against him, which left him breathless. He was also worried he was starting to get a cough, but that could quite easily be attributed to him running around a place that felt like an Arctic winter in a polyester sailor’s outfit.

So Steve explored. He looked for what he could find, if anything, in the shops. Whatever he could find had so far been mostly trapped under those same thick black vines, but he had managed to extract a pen from Melvald’s which was quite useful when it came to moving smaller vines away from things, and he’s picked up a couple of stones from the stream, which he was hoping, once dry, would possibly be useful in terms of lighting a spark. He was worried about how much he was using his lighter after he’d found a refill for the lighter fluid that, despite looking new, was completely empty.

Steve was far more interested in what the tunnel system under Hawkins held. Since it had been where he had found his lighter, he wondered what else there could be. Where most things in Hawkins had been changed or destroyed in some way, the fact that his lighter had been fully operational gave him a little bit of hope that there was something else that was useful down there. He remembered Hopper mentioning a graveyard somewhere around the Hub. He was hoping to find it and see if it had anything there.

He also remembered that a team of soldiers had been killed in that graveyard.

He tried not to think too hard about that. The soldiers had been lured there in a trap and hunted by a pack of Demodogs. Steve knew what he was going into. He also hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a Demodog. He knew to run if he saw them. He knew how to get out. It would have to be enough.

Steve was becoming more and more familiar with the layout of the tunnels, building up a mental map in his head. He could identify by sight which tunnel he needed to take to get back to the rope. He’d explored roughly where two more of the tunnels went in addition to working out which one would lead him to Starcourt Mall.

He was pretty sure he’d worked out which tunnel would lead him to Hawkins Lab. That said, he’d been pretty sure the last two times, and he’d been going off a vague memory of a map scribbled by his ex-girlfriend’s little brother. The tunnels twisted and turned so much it was hard to tell if he was right, but he’d worked out the vague direction of Hawkins Lab, and there were two more tunnels that he hadn’t tried that led in that general direction, and one seemed far more likely than the other.

He knew within a matter of minutes that he’d found the right tunnel. It didn’t slope like any of the others, curving side to side gently but overall balancing out to go broadly in one straight direction. He knew the Hub wasn’t far from Hawkins Lab.

It took him maybe fifteen minutes to get there. He’d managed to pick up the pace in his excitement, but hadn’t broken into a full run. Generally, while feeling like he was feeling, he wasn’t enthralled by the idea of overexerting himself. However, as he got closer to his destination, he slowed at the sights that started to crop up.

Bones. Fragments of bones stripped clean of flesh. A skull strewn carelessly across the path.

The soldiers had made a stand. He’d _thought_ they’d made a stand in the Hub, but evidently their bodies had ended up closer to the Lab. Whether they had tried to escape, to retreat back to safety, or whether their corpses had been dragged back by ravenous Demodogs was a mystery.

The tunnel was coming to its end. Very cautiously, he stepped out into the opening that he knew had once been the Gate.

It became apparent immediately that the soldiers had made it back to the Gate alive – with at least one exception. The skeletons lay scattered around, their flesh either eaten or rotted from their bones. What little remained of their protective biohazard suits was torn to pieces, scattered in small fragments around the place looking like those strange flakes that hung in the sky.

A dark shape by the closest skeleton caught his eye. It was black – almost camouflaged against the vines that covered the ground – but he knew this wasn’t a vine. It was thin, but too angular. He couldn’t quite tell if his suspicions were right. It was dark – too dark to see properly from where he was – but it looked like…

He crouched down and, using the pen he’d taken from Melvald’s, gently pushed away the black vine that had curled on top of it. His hand reached out and carefully felt along what it was. As his hand brushed against metal, he knew he’d been right. Gently, he pulled out the gun that the soldier had used to make his last stand.

It was heavier than he thought it would be. He felt it in his hand – he had no idea how to use it, and wasn’t about to try now – but he knew he had to take it back with him. If there was one, however, surely there had to be more – there had been at least four soldiers.

He slung the weapon over his back and started to look around the other skeletons. It was almost impossible to see properly in the dark, to pick out the shapes of guns and discern them from the black vines. However, he’d gotten a few steps towards the next skeleton when his eyes caught sight of something silver – something at least as large as the gun –

His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and he broke into his first proper smile in days as he recognised the flamethrower.

-:-

Hopper heard a car pull up outside. He went out onto the porch to see Joyce, Will and Jonathan getting out, looking shaken.

“Hey,” he said, running out to meet them. “What the hell happened? Max Mayfield showed up at the door about ten minutes ago wanting to talk to El.”

“Max is _here?_” Will asked.

Hopper nodded, noticing the sigh of relief that came from Jonathan.

“Thank god,” Will said. “I should… I should let the others know…”

He went inside, not looking back at his mom. Hopper watched him go in before turning back to Joyce and Jonathan.

“What the hell happened?” Hopper asked. “What’s going on?”

Jonathan looked at him darkly. “_Neil Hargrove_ happened,” he growled, before following Will inside.

Hopper watched Jonathan pass him before turning to Joyce who was leaning against the car, fumbling to get a cigarette out of her pocket.

“I’d gathered that much,” Hopper said to her. “What actually happened?”

“Neil got drunk,” Joyce deadpanned. “Started shouting at Susan and breaking some stuff. Max, she… something got to her, so she tried to stand up to him. I swear to god, Neil was going to hit her, but Lucas got involved. Neil, he…”

She took a shuddering breath, trying to steady herself as she tried to light the cigarette she’d extracted. Her hands were shaking so much that Hopper got his own lighter out and lit it for her, a crease forming between his eyebrows as he watched her gather herself together.

“He started on Lucas,” Joyce eventually continued. “Started saying these… these really _awful_ things to him. Lucas wanted to stand up for himself, but his parents took him away before anything started. Max ran out after that, we drove around looking for her in town, but I guess she came here.”

She finished, taking a long drag on her cigarette which seemed to help steady her. Hopper knew what was playing on her mind – Lonnie.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

“Me?” she looked up, shocked, from her cigarette. “_I’m_ fine. There are plenty of other people to worry about tonight.”

She took another drag, before watching the smoke drift away from her.

“The way the Sinclairs were, though,” she ranted. “I’ve known them for _years_, and I’ve never seen them like that. They were _scared,_ Hop. You should have seen them, bending over backwards to be _nice_ to Neil, to try and keep him _happy_, even though he was saying such _awful, awful things_ about them. Is that what it’s _like_ for them? Always take the high ground? Always walk away? Always, always, _always?_ It’s not _right, _Hop! He shouldn’t _get_ to treat people like that! _Good_ people like the Sinclairs! He doesn’t _belong_ in this town – _people like him don’t belong in this town!_”

“Joyce,” Hopper said in his determinedly measured voice. “Joyce, I get it. I agree with you. But right now, I need you to get it together. We need to find a way to deal with this so Max can feel _safe._ And honestly, I need you to be there when I talk to her. You know what I’m like with talks.”

Memories of his disastrous attempt at talking to Mike flashed up in his mind, forgetting he’d not actually told Joyce exactly how that conversation had gone. Fortunately, she agreed with him anyway about it, letting out a long exhale and watching the stream of smoke dissipate. She handed the last of the cigarette to Hopper and walked inside without another word to him.

Hopper followed her, ignoring Jonathan’s scandalised look as he brought the cigarette in and put it out on the ashtray on the counter. The door to El’s room was open, and he could see Will and El sat beside Max on her bed. Jonathan was still pacing around the kitchen, trying without much success to put together something halfway edible for them. It occurred to Hopper that he’d never actually seen Jonathan like this. He was always calm, measured, the voice of reason and logic. He never lost control – even if he was annoyed or angry or upset, there would be a short outburst, a period of quiet distance, and eventual forgiveness. This, however, these on-edge actions as he opened the cupboards a touch faster than necessary, closed them a fraction harder than necessary, this was completely new to Hopper. It was sharper. A hard, cutting edge to him as he struggled to find pots or pans or ingredients or whatever he was looking for.

Evidently Joyce wasn’t the only person who’d reacted badly to Neil Hargrove.

Joyce led the way into El’s room.

“Will, honey, would you mind if we talked to Max in private for a sec?” she said using that eternally wonderful parent tone that Hopper could only dream of having.

He looked at her and gave her a small smile as he nodded. He smiled warmly at Max, muttering something about just being outside as he left. El, fortunately, got the uptake and put her hand on Max’s, giving it a small squeeze before following Will.

“Oh,” Will stopped just before Hopper and Joyce went in, remembering something. “The others are all at Lucas’. The Wheelers and Dustin and his mom. Apparently they’re a bit shook up but they’re alright. They’re… they’re glad to know Max is safe.”

Hopper managed a small smile at him. “Thanks, kid,” he said, before closing the door behind him.

He settled down on the chair across from the bed. Joyce sat on the far side away from the door up by the pillow, while Max was sat in the middle of the bed looking nervous.

“So Joyce told me what happened,” Hopper said.

“Look, I know what you’re going to say,” Max cut across him shortly. “I don’t want the police to get involved. I didn’t come here because you’re the Chief of Police, or because you’re an adult I trust or any of that crap. I came here because I wanted to talk to El. That’s it. Period.”

Hopper ran a hand across his face. “I get that,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as possible. “But it’s my job to keep the people of this town safe. That includes you, and that also includes the Sinclairs.”

The mention of Lucas’ family wrong-footed her. She flinched back slightly, almost imperceptibly. Hopper knew he’d won that particular round.

“Max,” he asked in that same professional tone he’d used so much over the last few days. “Has Neil ever been violent to you before?”

Max looked down at her hands. “No,” she said.

Hopper wasn’t sure whether to believe her, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. “What about your mom? Has he ever been violent or threatening towards your mom?”

“Not that I know of,” she said in that same monotone. “I’ve never seen it.”

“And what about Billy? Do you know if he was ever violent towards Billy?”

Max’s eyes widened the smallest amount. If Hopper hadn’t been taught how to recognise it, he would have missed it, but as it was, it told him everything he needed to know.

“No,” Max said. Hopper knew it was a lie.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know if he was,” she snapped, looking Hopper straight in the eye. It was all the confirmation Hopper needed of what was going on, but none of the leeway to do anything about it.

“Alright,” he muttered, backing off. “Well, based on what happened today, I’m going to have to open an investigation into the incident-”

“What?” Max looked alarmed. “No! You can’t!”

“I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t. Too many people saw him threaten you and Lucas. This won’t go away, we can’t bury it. I’ve got to look into this as a cop to make sure nothing happens.”

“No, looking into this is going to make it _worse!_” Max pointed out. “Opening an investigation is just going to put him more on edge. He’ll be more likely to _do_ something with you on his back all the time!”

“Kid, I get that, I really do,” Hopper said, still keeping that professional tone of voice. “But my hands are tied here.”

“Honey,” Joyce came in with that wonderful ‘mom’ voice of hers. “Think about what would happen if he _did_ start getting violent towards your mom – towards you or Lucas. What if he put one of you in the hospital? We’ve got a chance to stop him now, and if we don’t take it and one of you gets hurt, that’s on us now. We can’t let that happen.”

Max still didn’t look like she agreed, but she settled on a filthy look rather than answering back.

“In the short term,” Hopper explained, “I don’t feel comfortable sending you back to that house tonight. We can call your mom, ask if you can stay with a friend. Here’s a bit full, but we could see if the Wheelers would be okay with you staying or something. Given the circumstances, I don’t think staying with the Sinclairs is a good idea, but-”

“No,” Max objected. “I have to go home, I need to see my mom.”

Hopper closed his eyes before opening his mouth, but Max cut across him before he could get a word out.

“No, Hopper, everything you’ve been saying about _investigations_ and me staying somewhere else – that’s only going to make things worse. _Apparently_ I can’t stop you from launching an investigation or something but if you take me somewhere that isn’t my house, I’ll just go home.”

“Max, honey-” Joyce cut in before Max rounded on her.

“You guys say I shouldn’t stay with Lucas?” Max pointed out. “Well, _wherever_ you take me, he’s going to think I’m with Lucas even if I’m not. Nothing’s going to convince him anymore, not you, not Hopper, not _anything._ The _only_ way he’ll believe that I’m not with Lucas is if I’m at home with him.”

“Honey,” Joyce said, shooting a look at Hopper telling him to stay out of this. “I know you think this is your only option. You feel like you’ve got to go back, I get it-”

“How?” Max shot back.

Joyce’s eyes suddenly saddened. Her lips pursed slightly before she finally tried for a smile. “Because I’ve been where you are with my ex-husband.”

For the second time in that conversation, Max was visibly wrong-footed. She didn’t know – Will and Jonathan hadn’t told her.

“I know how it feels,” she explained. “I know it feels like at some point, you’ve got to go home. You’ve got to go back to that situation. But it’s not your only option. You’ve got your dad somewhere-”

Max snorted. “Yeah, he’s not an option.”

Joyce and Hopper looked confused.

“_Divorce?_” Max explained, looking between them like they were idiots. “Mom won full custody. That’s why we moved here.”

“I think, given the circumstances, your dad might be able to appeal-” Hopper started to say.

“Yeah, well, when the courts get back to him on the other three or four appeals he filed, _then_ we can talk.”

Hopper fell silent, looking over at Joyce.

“Look,” Max said. “You think you _know_ me, just because your ex-husband was a piece of shit or whatever. Well, you _don’t._ You don’t know anything about my life. It’s not the same. Even if _I’m_ not there, my _mom_ is. And she’s not going to leave Neil. So let’s say we do it your way. I go stay with – with fucking _Mike_ of all people – and you go do your little investigation. It doesn’t turn up anything, because there’s _nothing to turn up._ What happens then? _I go home._ Only, it’s worse now. Neil’s pissed because there’s been an investigation, everyone’s gossiping about it, I’ve been hidden away from Neil and so he’s even more pissed at me for causing all this shit. He spends all his time getting angry about stupid little things and taking it out on my mom. Yeah, thanks, I’ll pass on that.”

Hopper knew he’d lost the argument. He looked down at his hands.

“Alright,” he said softly. “When you’re ready, I’ll take you home.”

“I can-”

“This is not up for negotiation,” Hopper said firmly. “I’m not letting you go back to that house on your own.”

A small pout settled on Max’s lips, but she bit back any argument she may have had.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But we should go soon. Mom’s probably worried.”

She got up and walked out, leaving Hopper and Joyce alone.

“She’s seen Neil get violent before, hasn’t she?” Joyce said, quietly enough that it was only audible to Hopper.

“Oh yeah,” he replied. “But we’ll keep trying.”

Joyce nodded, looking as though she might cry. “It’ll take time,” her voice was brittle. “But we’ll get through to her.”

Max crossed the living room to head over to where El, Will and Jonathan were all sat at the table. Jonathan had managed to put together some pasta and tomato sauce for them all – he suspected that anything more elaborate would have ultimately defeated him and probably the kitchen in the state he was in.

“I’m… I’m going to go in a sec,” Max announced at their expectant faces. “Thanks for… for everything, El.”

“Wait, you’re going _back?_” Jonathan asked, astonished.

“Yeah,” Max said. “I know what you’re going to say, but I just had the same talk from your mom, so leave it, alright?”

Jonathan looked over at Joyce and Hopper standing in El’s doorway. The looks they gave him was enough to make him back down.

“Alright,” Jonathan said. “Just know we’re here if you need us, okay?”

Max managed a forced smile. “Thanks,” she said.

Will got up to give her a hug. “I don’t know what to say, other than if you need to talk…”

The smile Max gave him was genuine this time. El got up and gave her a hug, but she didn’t need to say a word to her.

“Thank you,” Max said warmly. “I mean it. Thank you so much.”

El smiled back at her, knowing exactly what she meant. As Max walked out of the house and climbed into the car Hopper was borrowing from Sam, she thought back on the rest of the conversation she’d had with El.

_“Will you help me?”_

_El thought about it. She thought about how tired she’d been after her fight with that thing in Starcourt. She still felt at times like she was still recovering. But Billy was still in there somewhere. And he was stuck in the Upside Down. Billy was gone, but not lost forever. And she could help. She could help her friend._

_There was no question._

_“I can do it,” she said tentatively. “But… we can practise.”_

_Max’s eyes lit up. “Yeah,” she said breathlessly. “Yeah, of course we can. We could find somewhere quiet… somewhere safe… and we could try just getting a feel for it or something…”_

_“Tomorrow?” El asked._

_Max’s face split into a stunned grin that she couldn’t quite contain. “Yeah…” she breathed. “Tomorrow.”_

_“In the woods,” El suggested._

_Max’s eyes filled with tears for what felt like the thousandth time that night, but for the first time, she were happy. _

_“Yeah,” she all but gasped. “In the woods. Tomorrow.”_

-:-

“So how do you open a Gate?” Max asked.

She and El had found a small clearing in the forest, far enough away from Hopper’s cabin that they wouldn’t be spotted or disturbed but close enough that it wouldn’t take them too long to get back if they were missed.

Max had shown up at the door before breakfast had even been contemplated at the cabin. Hopper had dropped her off late the previous night, where they were met on the doorstep by a hushed but frantic Susan, who explained that Neil had passed out on the couch after everyone had left. Max had promptly been rushed into her bedroom with a quick goodnight kiss from her mother and instructions not to disturb the man sleeping on the couch. That morning, Max had been careful to get up after very little sleep at the crack of dawn to leave the house. However, as she’d been scribbling a note for them explaining that she was going to spend the day going shopping downtown with a girlfriend, she’d heard a grunt that set her on edge.

_“So you came back,” Neil grunted, still groggy._

_Max froze. “Yeah,” she answered, her back still to him._

_“Where’re you going?” Neil slurred._

_“A friend – a girlfriend – and I are going shopping today,” Max explained tensely. Of course, the next question would be ‘why so early?’ or something –_

_“A _girlfriend?_” Neil gave a soft laugh. “Since when do _you _have girlfriends?”_

_“She’s – uh – new in town,” Max scrambled. “Her name’s El.”_

_Neil adjusted his position on the couch. “Leave a note for your mother, will you?” he slurred, evidently still drunk. “Don’t want to listen to her _worry_ all day…”_

_It took another minute for his breathing to even out again, and another minute more for the first snore to erupt from him. Max let out a long exhale of relief before slipping out of the house._

From there, she had skated out towards the woods. It had taken her the better part of an hour, by which time the sun had split the sky into a hundred colours before it all evened out into a crisp, clear blue. When she finally reached the cabin, she’d been greeted by Jonathan, who had evidently only woken up from her knock.

El, however, _had_ been awake. Max had come up with an excuse about wanting some one-on-one girl time with El, that they’d talked about it last night, and could they _please_ just spend the day having a picnic in the woods or something, just on their own. Once Hopper had finally found a cup of coffee pressed into his hands by Jonathan, and grumpily grunted out a few questions like ‘_why didn’t you mention this last night?_’ and ‘_why is this happening at eight in the morning on my first day off in over a week?_’ he’d finally conceded, even making some mention to El about trying to get Max to open up about Neil. Joyce was far more positive about the whole thing, seeing the advantage of having Max nearby and _not_ in that house, and even going so far as to make them sandwiches using the expanding pantry that she’d been building in that cabin.

And so they’d found themselves in that clearing. Nobody was around for miles. Even Hopper wouldn’t disturb them.

“I find something,” El explained to Max. “In the Upside Down. And then I have to touch it. It brings it here.”

Max paused, thinking for a moment. “Okay,” she said slowly. “What did you find at Starcourt?”

El paused. Memories of that huge shape lurking in the darkness filled her mind.

“The Shadow,” she said softly.

Max’s eyes widened. “Okay…” she said. “Maybe not the Shadow. What else is there?”

“Demogorgons,” El suggested. Memories of _Papa_ telling her not to be scared, not to run away, but to make _contact…_

Fortunately, Max was not _Papa._ “Okay, so not those either. Is there anything in the Upside Down that’s _not_ dangerous?”

El looked at Max with those big wide eyes that she gave Mike every time he was explaining something about relationships, and although she couldn’t quite understand or follow what Mike was saying because he was rambling through his point so much, she could tell that he was being incredibly stupid.

“Alright, anything that’s _less_ dangerous?” Max corrected.

El paused, thinking hard. She thought about that moment she’d ended up in the classroom in the Upside Down after finally killing the Demogorgon to save Mike. She’d only been there for a few minutes, but what had she seen?

“Vines,” she finally said.

Max’s face lit up as a huge smile spread across her face. “Okay,” Max said excitedly. “Do you think you could find a vine or something here?”

El smiled, and pulled out that same blindfold she’d had with her at Starcourt.

Max watched as El sat down on the floor, blindfold in place, and searched. There was utter stillness. Even the birds seemed to have stopped singing in the trees while waiting on tenterhooks for something to happen.

Finally, El pulled the blindfold off, looking disappointed. She wiped away at the blood coming from her nose with the edge of her sleeve. She looked up at Max and shook her head.

Max did her best to hide her disappointment, putting on a smile that was only slightly forced.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s okay, you tried.”

“I can try again,” El said in that soft, determined voice.

“Only if you’re sure,” Max said.

El nodded and put the blindfold back on. The world went dark.

Her void was what it always was. She gently padded through the black, the only sound was her own breath.

This time, however, she knew something was different. Better. There was something different in the darkness.

The mirror-still surface of the water that she walked across was broken up ahead of her by what looked like cracks from her vantage point. The black lines created intricate patterns in the water, but they themselves were thick, rough and messy.

_Vines._

She started to walk towards them. When walking didn’t feel fast enough, she broke into a run. She was almost there. She stretched out her hand –

A cracking sound like thunder broke through her void. She and Max leapt back as the ground beneath their feet started to split.

-:-

Steve jolted awake at a sound like thunder. Straight away, he knew something had changed.

He ran to his mom’s window. He’d made it back with the gun and the flamethrower in one (albeit slow) trip, before collapsing onto his mom’s bed. He’d evidently passed out not long after, because sleep was still forcing his eyes to squint as he stared out into the forest.

A bright red light was emanating from some way into the woods. He couldn’t see the source in amongst the trees, but the light was brighter than anything else he’d seen in the Upside Down.

He didn’t bother taking the gun or the flamethrower – they were too heavy, and he still hadn’t had a chance to work out how to operate them. Instead, he sprinted out the back door and into the trees, not stopping for anything.

He tore over the ground as fast as he could, ignoring the way various parts of his body screamed out in pain. He was gasping for breath – his broken ribs evidently didn’t agree with the exercise – but he didn’t stop. He knew he had to get there.

-:-

“Something’s coming,” El said.

-:-

Steve hadn’t realised how much he had slowed until he could see the first glimpses of the light through the trees. It was almost as bright as the sun in the sky, but Steve didn’t dare look away. He picked up the pace again and pushed his body back into a sprint.

-:-

“Something bad,” El’s voice took on a tone of trepidation.

-:-

Steve suddenly caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye – another thing tearing through the forest. Steve pushed himself one more time, but whatever reserves of energy he had were long spent. This other thing was going to get there first…

-:-

“Close it!” Max said urgently.

El didn’t need any encouragement. She stretched out her hand.

-:-

Steve pushed himself to his final limits. He had to run – he had to get there first –

As suddenly as it had come, the light vanished. Steve slowed to a stop in a matter of steps, his eyes wide with shock. He didn’t understand what had just happened. And apparently, neither did this shadow.

Steve ducked down as an animalistic roar tore through the silence. But this wasn’t the same scream that the Demogorgons would give, this was –

_“SHIT!” _Steve heard the shout shatter the silence. “Fuck! Shit! God fucking _damn it!_”

Steve froze. This shadow was a human. A human with incredibly colourful vocabulary at that. More to the point, he knew that voice.

Carefully, he approached the clearing where this person was now standing. The figure was kicking at the ground. Steve took in the silhouette – the messy curls that fell around his face, the dirty tank top that left those toned arms uncovered…

Steve finally stepped out into the clearing when he was finally sure.

“_Billy Hargrove?_”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So thank you all for your wonderful responses to this story so far, it's been absolutely amazing. I'm sorry the last chapter got quite as heavy as it did, and especially to those who have been in those sorts of situations. I'm glad that, by the sounds of things, I did a decent enough job of writing it, but there is a reason I put a bunch of trigger warnings in the chapter notes for that last chapter, because that was DARK... That said, the story is probably not going to get as dark as that again, so rest assured, you've made it through the hardest scene I'll write. Now, let's enjoy what we came here for - Billy and Steve in the Upside Down!


	12. Part 2 Chapter 5: There’s Just No Talking To Some People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I said it wouldn't get as dark as a couple of chapters ago, and I... may or may not have been wrong. No massively overt racism in this chapter, but there is a trigger warning:
> 
> DOMESTIC ABUSE: There is physical assault in this chapter as well as controlling behavior and strong threat of violence towards a minor. Please be careful.
> 
> I promise, this will (hopefully) be the last time that I have to give you this warning.

“_Steve Harrington?_”

Billy sounded as shocked as Steve felt. What in the name of all things Upside Down was _Billy Hargrove_ doing here?

“Steve fucking _Harrington?_” Billy repeated. “What the fuck are _you_ doing here?”

“I saw a light,” Steve said guardedly.

“Yeah, no shit,” Billy rolled his eyes. “I meant _here_. In this _place_.”

Steve looked over Billy appraisingly, taking in the state of his jeans, his top, his hair. Even in the low light, Steve could see they were covered in all kinds of dirt and grime. His hair wasn’t set in its usual style, instead hanging loosely around his face in matted tangles. All in all, he looked terrible. But then, Steve knew he wasn’t about to win any pageants himself.

“Jumped in,” Steve said in that same guarded tone.

He remembered the last time he’d had a conversation this long with Billy Hargrove – it had been right before Billy had smashed a plate over his head and punched him unconscious. Since then, the pair of them had kept out of each other’s way. Steve had kept his head down, trying his best to pass high school with a thoroughly mediocre grade, while Billy had strutted around with Tommy H and Carol lapping up every word he said. The most interaction they’d had in months would be during basketball practice, where Billy would make the occasional joke about getting with Nancy’s mom – or as he put it in the locker room, _the better Wheeler bitch._ Steve had done his best not to rise to the jokes. So what if he’d accidentally pushed past Billy on the way to his car? So what if he’d let Billy see a glimpse of what was in his trunk? Of that nail bat Max had nearly used to mince her stepbrother’s genitals? Billy never said anything to him directly anymore.

Of all the people in Hawkins to be stuck in the Upside Down with, Billy Hargrove was not Steve’s first choice.

Billy snorted. “What the fuck did you do _that _for?”

“Wasn’t exactly in love with the other options at the time.”

Billy snorted again. “Must have been some pretty shitty options then.”

Steve shot him an exasperated look. “How did _you_ end up here then, Hargrove?”

“Car crashed,” Billy explained with a shrug. “Woke up here. Was probably a few days ago.”

That confused Steve. “Is that _it?_”

“Is _what_ it?”

“Your car crashed, and you just… _woke up here_? In my experience there’s usually a little more to it than that.”

“You have _experience_ with this shit?”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah, a bit.”

“No shit,” Billy said, his tone changing. He was smiling at Steve, that same triumphant smile he always had when he left Steve in the dust on the basketball court.

“Impressed, Hargrove?”

“Not exactly,” Billy said, his smile broadening. “Just realising you might be my best chance of getting out of here.”

Steve scowled. “Well, sorry to disappoint you, but you’re not exactly mine, so I’m going to go.”

Steve started to turn away before he found Billy’s hand on his arm. Billy’s hand was almost as cold as Steve’s. Almost.

“Wait!” Billy called, his eyes wide. “Look, you don’t like me, I get it. But we’re stuck here together. You can _try_ going it alone, but we’ll have a much better chance of staying alive here if we stick together.”

Steve gave a bitter laugh. “You see, that’s where you’ve misunderstood,” he said. “I don’t _not want you around_ because I don’t _like_ you, I don’t want you around because you’re a fucking _psycho. _You nearly punched me into a coma because you didn’t like your sister’s friend-”

“She’s not my sister.”

“_I don’t give a shit!_” Steve threw his arms up. “My point is that I _honestly _think that having you around might one day _kill me!_”

Billy fell silent. Steve was slightly more successful in walking away this time – he managed to take _four whole steps _before Billy called him back.

“You managed to find any food yet?”

That stopped Steve in his tracks.

“No,” he said softly, not looking back.

“You try the shops?” Billy suggested, his voice with that triumphant edge.

Steve turned around and glared at him. “Yeah, I tried the shops. Nothing. Whatever food was there was rotten.”

Billy’s grin had a slight menacing quality. “That’s because I got there first.”

-:-

El fell back as soon as the Gate closed. In the dim red light, she’d seen the slightest hint of a shadow. It was a figure – a man without a face…

She scrambled away from the line in the dirt, shrinking into a tree. She was breathing hard – she couldn’t get enough air into her chest – what little breath was coming came in short, sharp gasps –

“El?”

She jolted as Max suddenly appeared at her side. It was all El could do to focus on her face, take in those wide eyes that stared at her in such concern. It helped ground her. She wasn’t alone. The monster hadn’t come through the Gate.

“It’s okay,” Max was saying. “It’s okay. We don’t have to try again.”

El immediately warmed to Max, shrinking into her as Max pulled her into a hug.

“Why don’t we just go somewhere else?” Max suggested. “We can go somewhere and eat those sandwiches Will’s mom made us.”

El nodded, finally standing up without taking her eyes off the crack in the dirt.

“Sandwiches,” she breathed.

-:-

“So what exactly _is _this place?” Billy asked, carefully picking a path for Steve to follow.

Steve eyed Billy’s back. He may have been forced into a situation with him, but that didn’t mean Steve trusted Billy as far as he could throw him. And past experience taught him that he couldn’t throw him very far.

“We call it the Upside Down,” Steve said. “It’s like… this other dimension, like a mirror of Hawkins. It’s like… how fleas can walk on the side of a tightrope or something.”

Billy looked back over at Steve like he was a five-year-old trying to tell a story. “What?”

“I don’t really know, some kids told me about it,” Steve hit back.

“Max’s friends?” Billy asked.

“Yeah.”

“She’s involved too.” It was a statement, not a question.

Steve didn’t take his eyes off the back of Billy’s head. “Yeah.”

“And that was what you were doing together at that house,” Billy said, fitting the pieces together.

“Yeah,” Steve acknowledged.

“So how’d _you_ get involved?” Billy asked. “Bunch of middle-schoolers running around, didn’t seem like your scene.”

Steve felt his gut twist in that far too familiar way at the thought of how he’d gotten involved. “Nancy’s best friend was killed by something from here,” Steve explained.

“Ah,” Billy said, and Steve could hear the smirk in his voice. “So the princess got involved and dragged you with her.”

“Not exactly.”

Billy turned around to look at him, a slightly incredulous smirk settled on his lips. “You going to start giving me longer answers or am I going to have to start guessing the rest?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Steve bit back quietly.

Billy rolled his eyes before turning back to pick his way through the trees. “Suit yourself.”

Finally, they burst through the trees into a clearing. A tent had been haphazardly erected, and inside it seemed to be Hawkins’ entire supply of tins.

“You’ve been living _here?_” Steve asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” Billy said. “So what? Not up to the standards of _King Stevie’s palace?_”

“Well, I mean, if _you_ want to live in a tent in the middle of nowhere,” Steve said with a shrug.

“Alright,” Billy shrugged. “Where are you staying?”

Steve looked at him incredulously. “You’re not coming with me-”

“_Jesus_, will you take that stick out your ass?” Billy said exasperatedly. “I’m not planning some _big scheme_ to take you down.”

Steve glared at Billy. Flashes of everything he’d ever known about Billy were fresh in his memory. _Billy shoving him over in basketball with a word about planting his feet… Billy and Tommy laughing about his breakup with Nancy… Billy throwing Lucas up against the wall… The plate breaking over his head…_

“Look,” Billy said. “You’re not the person I’d choose to be stuck here with. But you’re the only person I’ve seen in _days_. I’ve got no _fucking idea_ about this place. You _seem_ to know a bit more than I do, but be honest, do you _really_ know that much about it? You can’t tell me you want to be here alone; you’ll go crazy. Like, full on _‘Shining’_ shit.”

“Yeah?” Steve shot back. “Well, you don’t know anything about me. If you _did_, you’d know I’m _really_ _fucking good_ at being alone.”

“Sure,” Billy snorted derisively. “What’re you going to do? Hang around moping all day? Wait for this place to tear you apart? Hate to say it, but you’re not looking so hot, Stevie. So you can go be miserable and wait for the inevitable day when you finally kick the bucket, _or_ I can come back with you and we can stick together.”

“_‘Stick_ _together’?_” It was Steve’s turn to be derisive. “What, like a _pack_ or something?”

Billy shrugged. “Sure, why not? We’re nothing more than animals out here anyway.”

Steve thought about it. Billy raised a lot of good points – Steve was otherwise completely on his own out here, and with Billy around, there was a chance he could let his guard down for a second against the Upside Down. Not to mention, Billy had managed to acquire basically everything in Hawkins’ Upside Down that was fit for human consumption. With anyone else, this would have been a complete no-brainer. But the fact remained that it wasn’t anyone else. It was _Billy fucking Hargrove._

“Come on,” Billy finally broke the silence. “Let’s move on from high school. It’s either us together, or it’s us against each other.”

Steve resigned himself to his fate.

“Fine,” he conceded. “But _you’re_ carrying the food.”

-:-

It turned into the nicest day Max and El had had since Starcourt.

El was relishing being out in the fresh air. Max was enjoying being away from the atmosphere of grief, the constant questions about ‘_how was she doing_’ and the endless concerned looks. The reality of what they both had to go back to was still lurking, but it was nice to escape it for a little while.

Unfortunately, reality didn’t like being ignored.

It was late afternoon when Max and El came back into the cabin to be met by a grim-faced Hopper, while Jonathan and Will sat on the couch.

“Your mom called,” he announced as soon as Max walked through the door. “Says you left this morning with a note saying you’d be with a friend. Didn’t say which friend. Apparently, she called the Wheelers, the Sinclairs and the Hendersons before calling the station. Only called the station because I brought you home last night.”

That caught Max off-guard.

“She wants you to come home,” he continued. “She was very upset.”

The dread that welled up in Max’s stomach twisted painfully. She gave Hopper a small nod.

“You don’t have to go home,” Jonathan said from the couch. “You can-”

“Yes, I do,” Max whispered. She really should have known this conversation wasn’t over.

“Max-” Will started.

“God, just _leave it alone_, will you?” she snapped in the general direction of the couch.

Silence rang throughout the room. Jonathan looked guarded, Will apologetic. El looked surprised. Hopper frowned at her.

“Sorry,” she breathed. “I didn’t mean to snap. I know you’re just trying to help, but… it’s my life. I know what’s going on. I know Neil. Can you just… just take me home?”

-:-

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to ask,” Billy said. “What the hell is up with that outfit?”

Steve rolled his eyes. Honestly, he was surprised it had taken this long to come up, but that didn’t mean he was happy about answering it.

“It’s a uniform,” Steve said.

“A _uniform?_” Billy echoed incredulously.

“Yeah,” Steve snapped. “People sometimes wear them to work-”

“Yeah, I know what a uniform is,” Billy laughed. “I’m kind of surprised _you_ know, though. Wasn’t the life plan following Daddy into business or some shit?”

Steve hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Yeah, well, that’s not really an option anymore.”

“Oh yeah?” Billy asked. “Why’s that?”

“_Daddy_ nearly cut me off after I didn’t get into Tech,” Steve said coldly.

Billy burst out laughing. “You didn’t even get into _Tech?_” he laughed. “Fucking hell, I thought _everyone _got into Tech. Fucking _Carol_ got into Tech, and she’s even dumber than _you_ are.”

“Thanks,” Steve’s voice was like ice.

He’d finally found the stream. Steve slowly began picking his way down to the rock he used to cross it. He heard Billy follow him, the clanking of tins in the deconstructed tent that Billy was using as a brightly coloured sack being the only sound. Steve finally crested the ridge and pushed his way into his garden.

“Shit,” Billy finally said, impressed. “This is where you _live?_”

Steve shot him a dark look, followed by a sarcastic smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

“King Stevie’s Castle,” Billy murmured with a smirk on his face.

“Go to hell, Hargrove.”

“Aren’t I there already?”

Steve shot him a look that told him clearly that he didn’t share his sense of humour, before walking off into the house.

“Hey!” Billy called, following him into the doorway. “Hey, it was just a joke!”

“What the hell is wrong with you, Hargrove?” Steve rounded on him. “Making jokes – asking about my life – it’s not _you!_”

Billy smirked, but any trace of humour was gone from his face. “You don’t fucking _know_ me,” he pointed out. “Nobody in this two-bit town has ever known me, not Tommy H or Carol, not Max, not Susan, not even my fucking _dad._ And _certainly _not you.”

“I know what you are-”

“Really?” Billy asked. “You got me _pegged?_ You know my _type?_ Typical douchebag, come from a big city after a divorce and pissed as shit about it? _That_ what you’ve got so far?”

Steve fell silent, his glare hiding the fact that he’d been caught off-guard.

“I do what’s expected of a guy like me,” Billy said. “Makes it _easy_. I’ll be honest, I thought you’d know a bit about it. Typical rich kid with parents who are never around, trying to be popular because that’s _all that fucking matters_, isn’t it? Playing up to it. _Pretending._ That’s why I was so interested in you when I heard all about you. Thought we were similar. Problem is, you’ve been pretending so long, that’s all you know at this point. _Pretending_ is all there is to you.”

-:-

The drive back was quiet. Hopper tried a couple of times to start some form of conversation, but when he was met with grunts, he was vividly reminded of just why he’d hated teenagers.

He pulled the car into the driveway for the second time in as many days, only this time, it wasn’t Susan Mayfield who came running out. Neil Hargrove was stood on the doorstep, his face like thunder.

“Maxine,” he said as Max got out of the car, his tone heavy with threat. “Inside. _Now._”

Hopper got out of the car after her.

“Mr Hargrove!” he called at Neil’s retreating back.

Neil turned around and glared at Hopper. “Yes?”

Hopper closed the gap between them as Susan appeared at the doorway to usher Max inside. “Mr Hargrove, Max has obviously taken her stepbrother’s death pretty hard. She went to see Will Byers. Maybe it’s worth talking to her. You know, heart to heart.”

The echo of Joyce’s words to him a matter of days ago – _God, had it really only been days?_ – didn’t have quite the same effect on Neil as they’d had on Hopper.

“Yeah, well, she’s not the only one who’s suffered,” Neil growled. “And she needs to learn not to be so selfish.”

“I’m just saying-”

“It’s not your business how I teach my family to _respect_ each other, Chief Hopper,” Neil growled.

Hopper felt something ignite in him. Screw being nice. He'd tried. A bit. Maybe.

“Well, _Neil_ – is it alright if I call you Neil? – you should know, after hearing reports of your behaviour towards Max and Lucas Sinclair from witnesses, I’ve been forced to open up an investigation into what happened.”

Neil’s eyes widened and his scowl deepened. “_Excuse me?_”

Hopper took some grim satisfaction in Neil’s surprise. “You know… attempted assault on a minor… Indiana law is very clear on this.”

“_‘Attempted assault’?_” Neil echoed. “What the _fuck _is this?”

Hopper kept his voice low and level, doing his best to hide his enjoyment of Neil’s obvious discomfort.

“I’ve heard eyewitnesses claim that you threatened to assault your stepdaughter yesterday,” Hopper said. “By law, I have to take those claims seriously.”

“Has _Maxine_ said anything about this?” Neil growled.

Hopper kept silent, meeting Neil’s glare with a look that he hoped was neutral.

“I see,” Neil said, his tone finally matching Hopper’s. “Well, you should know that what goes on in _my_ _house_ with _my family_ is none of your _damn business!_”

Hopper shrugged. “Well, when you threaten the Sinclairs like you did yesterday-”

“I didn’t _threaten _anyone!” Neil snarled. “I tried to instil some fucking _respect_ into my stepdaughter after she starts shooting her mouth off at my own _son’s_ funeral. That little _shit_ comes in, _undermining _me, and tries to fucking _take her with him_. All I did was make it very clear to everyone what that meant.”

Hopper shrugged casually. “Well, _Neil_, let’s make one thing clear right here and now,” he said casually. “You hurt the Sinclairs, you go _near _them – hell, you _say their names_ in a way I don’t like, and I’ll come for you. Are we clear?”

Neil smirked at Hopper, but there was no laughter in his eyes. “Now look who’s _threatening._”

Hopper matched him with a humourless smile. “Glad we’re understood.”

Neil watched Hopper get back into the car and pull away slowly before going back inside. He walked into the door to see Maxine sat on the couch, hunched over, her long red hair forming curtains around her face.

“An _investigation?_” Neil snarled. “What the _fuck_ have you been telling him?”

“Nothing,” came Maxine’s reply, almost inaudible.

“Sorry?” Neil snapped, his temper rising. “Didn’t quite catch that.”

“Nothing!” Max replied defensively. “I haven’t said _anything!_”

So much for Hopper’s discreet investigation.

“Well you’ve obviously said something to _someone!_” Neil’s voice was rising. “Is that where you were today? Going and talking to your new _police_ buddy?”

“I haven’t-”

“You had your mother really worried,” Neil snapped, walking over to the countertop and snatching up the note Max had left that morning. “You leave a note saying you’re going _shopping_ with a friend_._ No mention of where, no mention of who, no mention of _when you’ll be back_.”

Max took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a fraction longer than a standard blink – something Neil noticed.

“Do you _not_ think that after _everything_ that’s happened – after losing _my son_ – that maybe, _just maybe_, that might be information your mother and I might _want?_” Neil crossed the room and slammed the note down on the coffee table with such force that it made Max jump. “And _then_ I find out you’ve not been _shopping_ at all, you’ve been off talking to some jumped-up small town _police chief_, full of his own self-importance because he somehow made it to the top of the world’s smallest ladder, and got it into his head that I’ve been _assaulting you?_”

“I didn’t-”

“Look at me,” Neil growled, his tone more dangerous than Max had ever heard him.

Max pursed her lips together, desperately trying to force back the tears welling up in her eyes.

“_Maxine,_” Neil’s voice softened. “Look at me.”

Max was determined to blink back those tears before looking up –

“_LOOK AT ME!_” Neil roared.

The sudden change in tone jolted Max upright, staring Neil straight in the eyes with a mixture of tears, horror, fear, and burning defiance.

“Maxine,” Neil said softly, towering over her. “You’re a little liar. You’ve been lying to that police chief, and now you’re lying to _me_. You’re running off, scaring your mother out of her mind, and after _ruining _my son’s funeral, you and that _boyfriend_ of yours are going spreading _little rumours_ around town about me. Well, you know what? I’m not having it anymore. It’s time you learnt some _respect_.”

“Maxine, go to your room.”

Susan’s words came out of nowhere. Max and Neil had all but forgotten she was there. There was a firmness to her voice that couldn’t hide the slight shake in her tone. There was fear – that much was obvious – but there was also the slightest hint of defiance.

“Maxine, go to your room and don’t come out tonight,” Susan repeated. “Not for dinner, not for anything.”

There was a silence as Neil and Max stared at Susan. She kept her eyes on Max, not daring to look at her husband. Whatever fear Max had heard in her voice was amplified a thousand times by the look in her eyes.

“_Now_, Maxine,” Susan said.

Max picked herself up off the couch and headed towards her room. Every step she took away from Neil felt heavier, her fear and guilt mounting. She closed the door, but it was a poor barrier between her and what was happening in the living room. She sat down on her bed and released a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. Tears started to run down her face uncontrollably. She desperately tried to stifle a sob as voices carried through the door.

“…The _fuck,_ Susan?” Neil was saying. “You think you can just _undermine_ me like that?”

Silence followed. Max eventually heard a small mumble.

“Maxine is a _goddamn _piece of work! She goes _running off_ with _no regard_ for me, or you, or _anyone_ but _herself!_ And now she’s out there spreading nasty little _stories_ about me? That can’t be left alone!”

“She’s been punished,” came the soft voice of her mother.

“What, with a fucking _timeout?_ Sending her to her room? Banning her from having _dinner?_ Susan, she knows as well as I do that she got off _easy!_ Her goddamn _mommy_ got in the way, went _soft _on her! Well, newsflash, she’s under _my roof_ now! That means she needs to learn to _respect _me!”

“No!” Susan sounded terrified.

“Excuse me?” came Neil’s voice, in that same terrifyingly calm tone that always preluded the oncoming storm. “Perhaps you need your _own_ lesson in respect?”

Max was torn between clamping her hands against her ears to drown it out and running out of her room to interfere. Paralysed by indecision, she sat there, frozen, listening to her mother use that desperately placating tone to try and calm him down.

“Neil, please, she’s had a rough time,” she was almost whispering. “It’s come as a terrible shock, she just needs time to calm down.”

“Yeah?” Neil growled. “Well, it’s not like she’s got a fucking _monopoly _on grief! Billy was _my goddamn kid!_ Not hers, not yours, _mine!_ And here _she_ is, using it as an excuse to act like a spoilt brat! She’s running off, terrifying the living _shit _out of you and _all you can fucking say_ is to beg me to go easy on her? Well, she’s had it pretty _fucking_ easy so far, it’s about time she learnt to _respect_ me!”

“She’s not-”

“Not _what_, Susan? Not had it _easy?_ She goes around saying _bullshit_ to that police chief, who then comes _here_ and starts fucking _threatening_ me with a fucking _investigation!_ And that’s not even _starting_ on what happened to Billy!”

Her mom sounded confused. “What?” she asked tentatively.

“Why the fuck do you think my son was at that mall in the first place?” Neil pointed out. “Why was he there with _her_ and all her _little_ _friends?_ He was there for _her!_ He was looking out for her! And how the fuck does she repay him? _By_ _running out and leaving him to burn to death in that fucking fire!_”

Clarity came for Max like a gunshot. The fact that Neil blamed her for Billy’s death terrified her, but also made sense of Neil’s attitude. Of course he was so angry now. Of course there was a rift between him and Susan and Max. It had split them apart. They weren’t family anymore. They were the Mayfields and the Hargroves. Well, _Hargrove._

_My son. My kid. Not hers. Not yours. Mine. He wasn’t your son, he was mine. What gives you the right? He was my son. My son. My son. Mine._

She clamped her hands over her ears but it wasn’t enough to drown out the rest of the conversation.

“What happened was a terrible accident-”

“Susan, it wasn’t a _fucking accident!_” Neil snarled. “She _chose_ to get out. She _chose _to leave him.”

“You don’t know that-”

“_Yes, I do!_” Neil roared. “She’s here. He’s not.”

“You can’t blame her for Billy’s death-”

“Watch me.”

Max heard footsteps crossing the hall – heavy, purposeful strides – Neil was coming.

“It’s about time your daughter learnt some _respect!_” Neil said, his voice rising.

“Neil, no-”

_CRACK!_

The sound echoed throughout the house, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the ringing silence that followed. Max’s hands flew away from her ears and she sat bolt upright, hardly daring to move. She heard a low voice – Neil’s – out in the living room, but couldn’t hear what was being said. As quietly as she dared, she opened her door a fraction and peered out of the gap.

Neil’s back was to her – _thank god_ – as her mother was bent face-down over the countertop. From where she was stood, Max could see that Neil had her mother’s arm twisted up behind her back and was bent low over her, his other hand flat on the countertop by her mother’s head. Susan’s face was turned outwards, towards Max’s door, and for a flash, she made eye contact with her daughter. Those blue eyes pleaded with Max.

_Don’t interfere. Don’t get involved. Don’t come out._

“Stop protecting Maxine,” Neil was muttering into Susan’s ear. “She can’t always have someone to save her from the consequences of her actions.”

“Please…” Susan whimpered, so quietly Max could barely hear her. “Please don’t hurt my little girl…”

“Your little girl?” Neil echoed, stepping back from Susan and letting her go. “She’s not so little anymore, is she? And let me remind you, I’m the _only _reason her father isn’t in the picture. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be in California, fighting _appeal_ after _appeal_ after _appeal_ from that piece of shit. I’m the _only_ reason you could come here. And the thanks I get? _My_ _son_ gets killed trying to protect your _little girl._”

“I’m sorry,” Susan whispered, sliding to the floor and leaning against the counter as tears began to run down her face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

This, at last, seemed to placate Neil, because the next words out of his mouth sounded oddly tender.

“I know,” Neil said. “I know. I don’t like doing that. Not to you. I _love_ you, Susan. I’m the only one who loves you. You know that, right?”

Susan nodded.

“Good,” Neil said. “Good.”

What followed was a scene that repulsed Max more than anything else she’d seen that night. Neil went and settled himself on the couch wordlessly while Susan went into the kitchen and got a beer bottle from the refrigerator. She handed it to Neil as Neil turned on the television, before she sat down nervously next to him. He put an arm round her shoulder as they found some talk show on the television, the studio audience’s laughter occasionally joined by a small chuckle from Neil. It was so domestic, telling nothing of the violence that had come mere minutes before.

They stayed like that for almost an hour, the only movement being Susan getting up every so often to get another beer for Neil. Once the talk show finished, she felt that Neil had calmed down enough for her to suggest that she go to bed. Susan handed him another beer before going to the bedroom.

Neil, however, stayed on the couch. Max suspected he’d end up falling asleep there, but she didn’t dare let her guard down. She stayed awake, lying on her bed with the lights out, as the talk show turned into a rerun of an episode of the Twilight Zone. She stayed awake as the Twilight Zone turned into a show about some conspiracy involving the water supply of a town in Michigan. Eventually, as the conspiracy show was coming to a close, Neil turned off the television, but Max still didn’t dare sleep. She didn’t hear his breath even out into snores that would tell her he was safely asleep.

Max sat up as quietly as she could. Peering through the small gap in the door, she could see Neil sat there in total darkness. He was just sitting there.

Hours passed. Max lay down on her bed with her back to the door, waiting for Neil to move – either to get up to go to bed or else just to lie down on the couch. Still nothing. No change.

The red display on her digital clock read 04:21 when Neil finally moved. He stood up and walked through the house. He was making an unusual attempt to be quiet as he walked through the house.

He first stopped by Max’s door and pushed it open. She’d been lying in the same position for hours, but she froze as she felt his eyes on her. He was watching her, unable to see her wide-open eyes as she stared at her clock, not really seeing it, listening… waiting…

Finally, he pulled the door closed before walking towards her mom’s room. Max listened as he did the same, watching her mom sleeping.

Eventually, though, he moved on from there too. Without a word, he walked back through the house. Max heard him fumble with the coat rack, before going to a drawer in the kitchen and pulling out what sounded like a set of keys. Max heard the front door open and shut – she heard the car door open and shut outside – she heard the engine start, the hum of a car engine moving away, and then…

Nothing.

As quietly as she could, Max stood up. She walked towards the door and peered out into an empty hallway. She padded through into the living room, looking around, noticing the absent coat that normally hung on the coat rack.

She walked over towards a window and peered out into the driveway. There was nothing there, no car, no Neil. She opened the front door and quietly stood in the doorway, facing the empty night.

Neil was gone.


	13. Part 2 Chapter 6: Shot Through The Heart

Billy Hargrove was sitting in his kitchen.

The charred remains of _whatever_ still sat on top of his stove, and Billy was sat on the counter, laughing at it.

“Wow, you would have been _screwed_ without me,” Billy said. “_This_ was how you were boiling water?”

Steve shot him a look of utter impatience. “Yeah.”

Billy raised his eyebrows, grinning patronisingly. “I’m surprised you got it hot enough, what were you even burning?”

Steve shrugged. “Whatever I could find,” he answered. “Think I got some newspapers from Melvald’s, pencils, found a couple of twigs by the river…”

That had Billy doubled over, his face buried in his hands as he howled with laughter.

“You were never a boy scout, were you?” Billy cackled. “King Stevie, too comfortable in his castle to learn some basic survival tricks.”

Steve only glared in response. Finally, Billy composed himself enough to push himself off the counter, but the laughter was still very much alive in his eyes.

“Well, _your majesty,_ you’ve clearly been watching too many films about starting fires with rocks, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Billy tossed one of the stones Steve had set aside from the river over to him. Steve had barely caught it, taken off guard, when Billy threw the other one. It bounced off Steve’s chest and landed on the floor.

Unfortunately, the stone caught a part of Steve’s chest just under his broken ribs, which sent a jolt of pain through him. Suddenly unable to get enough air in his lungs for a split second, he gasped, jarring his broken ribs, which sent him doubling over, a horrible, wet, hacking sound filling the room.

“_Jesus_,” Billy said, more accusatory than concerned. “That doesn’t sound healthy.”

Steve would have loved to have hit back with a sarcastic comment about how this was actually perfectly normal, or how _everyone_ started coughing like this at the slightest gasp, or even just a sassy ‘_no shit’, _but the coughing fit prevented any words from forming.

Eventually, the coughing abated, and Steve was left doubled over, trying to snatch some deep, steadying breaths.

“What the hell _happened_ to you?” Billy asked in that same accusing tone.

“Would you believe me,” Steve rasped, straightening up, “if I told you that some evil Russian soldiers tried to torture me in their secret base under the mall?”

Billy’s eyebrows raised in an unimpressed look. “It’s not exactly the craziest thing you’ve told me.”

Steve managed a small smirk at that. “So you believe me when I say that we’re in an another dimension and that a load of Commie bastards tried to torture me, but you _don’t_ believe me when I tell you that your sister isn’t in the Byers’ house back in November?”

“Oh, no, don’t get me wrong, if I hadn’t been here for days already, I’d be trying to commit you into a psych ward,” Billy shrugged. “But that night, I could see her in the fucking window, and you were stood there lying to my face. Also, she’s not my sister.”

Steve conceded with a shrug.

“Anyway,” Billy said brusquely. “Go ahead. Fire.”

Steve gave Billy a sarcastic smile, looked down at the stone on the floor, and raised an eyebrow at Billy before pulling out his lighter. He took a certain amount of grim satisfaction at the look on Billy’s face as he clicked it to make the small flame dance between them for a moment before flicking it out. He was done taking Billy’s shit, so the look of extreme annoyance on Billy’s face gave Steve a slightly shameful amount of enjoyment.

“Where the hell did you get _that?_” Billy asked.

“Found it,” Steve said with a shrug.

“None of the lighters here have fluid,” Billy pointed out.

“Yeah, well, _this_ one did,” Steve smirked.

“Where did you find it?”

Steve’s smile grew. “There’s a network of tunnels under Hawkins,” he explained. “Something from this place built them in our dimension. I’m _guessing_ that the tunnels themselves were like some kind of extension of this place into our world or something, and when we closed the Gate last year that… that _connection_ was cut off or whatever, I don’t really know.”

By the look on his face, neither did Billy.

“The point is,” Steve continued, “last year, I went into the tunnels and set them on fire. This is my lighter from back then.”

Billy’s expression darkened. Clearly, knowing less than Steve didn’t suit him.

“You find anything else in these tunnels?” Billy asked.

Steve smiled as patronisingly as he could. He led the way up the stairs to his mother’s bedroom, and gestured to where the gun and the flamethrower were lying on the floor. Billy’s face looked like thunder for the briefest moment as he took in the sight of the weapons on the floor.

“What’s the problem?” Steve asked smugly.

“Sorry,” Billy said incredulously. “You had _these_ here, and you were worried about _me_ being a threat?”

-:-

The lack of any way to gauge the passage of time was starting to annoy Steve.

After Billy had discovered the gun and the flamethrower, they’d finally got around to setting a fire and heating one of Billy’s tins. The food was such a shock to Steve’s system after what felt like days of hunger that he’d almost thrown up. If it had been any more solid, he might well have done, but the fact that at least ninety percent of those tins were soup in some shape or form did have its upsides, and his system had eventually processed it. After that, Steve had suggested that they try and get some sleep. Billy had, of course, had more than a few words to say about sharing a bed with Steve, with a couple of jokes about how ridiculous it was, endless questions about why they couldn’t use another bed in the ‘_thirty-seven bedroom palace_’ Steve lived in, and, of course, repeated insistences that Steve not cross into his side of the bed. Steve was proud of himself for not biting back with a retort about the only reason he’d cross into Billy’s side would be to strangle him in his sleep.

That said, despite everything, Steve was surprised to wake up alone.

It was not inconceivable that Billy had gotten up to go to the bathroom – or, at least, the bushes, as Steve had discovered that plumbing in the Upside Down was entirely decorative. Or else Steve could have been asleep for a while and Billy could have gotten up to sort out breakfast.

But neither of those options sat quite right with him. Steve didn’t get the feeling he’d been asleep for very long. And, honestly, in the Upside Down, he wasn’t about to take chances.

He picked up the black gun and threaded the strap over his shoulder. Holding it aloft as best he could with his left hand still in the state that it was, he walked out of the bedroom, finger ready on the trigger.

The hallway was silent. There was no sign of Billy. The darkened hallway outside his mom’s room was completely empty. As quietly as he could, he slipped down the stairs towards the living room.

“Billy?” he called out tentatively into the darkness.

He was met with silence and stillness. Nothing seemed overly out of place – at least, no more out of place than everything else in the Upside Down felt. He passed through the living room and peered into the kitchen. The tins were still jumbled up in the tent on the kitchen floor, the embers of the fire from the previous night were utterly extinguished, and there was still no sign of Billy.

Steve turned around quietly to go back into the living room and walk towards the doors that led out to the pool. He quietly stepped around the couch and –

His foot kicked the leg of the coffee table.

Steve jumped. His finger tightened around the trigger –

A burst of gunfire echoed from the barrel. Steve found himself blown backwards with a few steps, struggling to keep a hold on the automatic weapon. The barrel swung around the room at random with the force of the recoil from the gun. Bullets sprayed everywhere. Steve had to stop –

With more effort than he would have ever thought necessary, Steve managed to get his finger off the trigger, leaving him breathless. His heart rate was at least twice what it normally was. Adrenaline coursed through his body. The silence seemed more intense, echoes of the gunfire ringing in his ears. What few fingers could clasp around gripped the gun in a vice like grip, his knuckles white –

“Steve, what the _hell?_”

Steve wheeled around to see Billy standing in the doorway to the stairs, looking more than a little alarmed. When Steve swung round to face him, Billy flinched, ducking down behind the door.

“Steve, put that down before you kill us both!” Billy demanded.

Steve’s hands flew off it and he quickly tried to pull the strap off –

“No, don’t _drop _it!” Billy all but screamed. “Put it down – gently!”

Steve slowly held it and started to lower it to the ground.

“Hands away from the trigger,” Billy coaxed. “Easy, easy…”

Steve put the gun on the floor and took a step back.

“_There _we go,” Billy said, finally daring to come into the room.

He crossed the room to where Steve was standing and crouched down between Steve and the gun. He looked at the weapon on the floor for all of six seconds before turning back to Steve.

“Did you _know_ the safety was off?” Billy asked accusingly.

“…Safety?” Steve echoed.

Billy’s eyebrows shot up, his eyes wide. “Alright,” Billy said. “You need some basic lessons in how you use this before you kill us both with your stupidity. Come down.”

He motioned for Steve to crouch down beside him. Steve looked down at Billy for a second, still feeling slightly shell-shocked, before following suit.

“Right, so you see this little switch thing?” Billy explained, pointing to the relevant part on the gun. “That’s the safety. Stops you from firing all over the place by accident like you just did there. You’re _really_ _fucking_ _lucky_ you didn’t hurt yourself. Or, you know, _me._”

“Wouldn’t have hurt you if you hadn’t gone wandering off,” Steve hit back.

Billy chose to ignore that comment. “So we’re going to put the safety on, like… so!”

Billy flipped the little black switch with a click. Steve let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

“Wow, Steve, you would have been dead in a heartbeat if I hadn’t come along,” Billy chuckled, but there was none of the bite that those comments had had the previous evening – _Evening? Morning? Who even knew anymore?_

Right,” Billy said, jumping up and motioning Steve to follow him. “Let’s work on your stance.”

Steve stood up slowly, his brain still not quite catching up to what was going on.

“You know how I’ve always told you to plant your feet?” Billy said. “Well, plant your fucking feet.”

Billy started to demonstrate, one foot slightly in front of the other, bouncing on his knees. Steve hesitated before mirroring Billy’s pose.

“Move your left foot back a bit,” Billy corrected. “There – Loosen up your knees – No, not _that _much – Jesus, what part of ‘_plant your feet_’ is so difficult? – That’s it, really ground yourself…”

Steve frantically tried to follow instructions as Billy doled them out, his brain still trying to work out how he’d ended up taking a firearms lesson from _Billy Hargrove_ when less than twenty minutes ago he’d been asleep. Billy was quick in his instructions and precise in what he was asking, but not exactly the most patient teacher. Any time he picked up on a mistake, he used it to patronise Steve. Steve was certainly more patient than he had been a year ago – herding Dustin would make anyone patient – but somehow Billy seemed to be pressing all of Steve’s buttons.

“–You’re not putting your weight on your-”

“_You_ fucking do it then!” Steve snapped.

Billy had the decency to look taken aback for a second. Exactly one second. Then, it was as though he’d been waiting for a chance to do this for his entire life. Wordlessly, with either anger or smugness, (Steve wasn’t entirely sure which,) Billy set about adjusting his posture. He wasn’t gentle about it, kicking at Steve’s feet until he was sure they were in the right position. He then walked behind Steve, pulling his shoulders back until he was stood up straight. Steve made a small noise of protest which he would deny to his dying day was a whimper.

“Hands,” Billy demanded, moving to stand to Steve’s side.

Steve gave Billy a filthy look as he stretched out his hands. Billy took Steve’s wrists, raising an eyebrow at the state of Steve’s left fingers, before adjusting the left arm out while folding the right one slightly behind. Billy then picked up the gun and all but pushed it into Steve’s hands. He then adjusted Steve’s grip, pulling the whole gun back so the butt settled into Steve’s shoulder.

“There,” Billy said coldly, any unexpected warmth he’d had that morning vanishing into the ether.

“You couldn’t have been any more gentle about that if you’d tried, could you?” Steve muttered sarcastically.

“You asked me to do it for you,” Billy hit back. “Now, find a target.”

“You’re not an option?” Steve asked with a grin.

Billy raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “No,” he said. “And don’t even joke about that. Gun safety one-oh-one: _never_ point a real gun at anyone.”

Steve found the decency to look contrite. He’d always tried to take the high road after screwing up. Even with Billy Hargrove.

“Right, so find your mark,” Billy said. “Try… that painting over there.”

He gestured towards a large abstract artwork that hung on the far wall. Steve had always hated it. His parents assured him that it was a genuine Joan Miró, but Steve had little taste for art, particularly the abstract variety. This particular artwork had nothing but a blue dot painted off-centre, which had apparently taken Miró months to create. Steve honestly thought the Upside Down vines covering it were a significant improvement.

“So aim for the dot,” Billy said softly. “Line up your sight-”

“What the fuck is my sight?” Steve asked.

“You see those little squares sticking out from the top of the barrel? They’ve got little notches in them.”

Steve took in the appearance of the gun properly for the first time. He couldn’t for the life of him pick out very much else in the low light, but finally, he thought he’d found one.

“I think I’ve got it,” Steve said softly, matching Billy’s tone.

“There should be two of them,” Billy said.

It took another few seconds to find the second one, but now that Steve actually had an idea of what he was looking for, it proved much easier to find.

“Got it,” Steve announced, feeling slightly relieved.

“Right,” Billy said. “So line up those little notches, and find your target and line that up with the gaps.”

“Any particular target?”

“Try the blue dot,” Billy suggested dryly. “Make sure you’ve got it lined up with _both_ the little gaps. When you think you’ve got it, pull the trigger.”

Steve did his best to line up the targets. The gun was heavy in his hands, and it was getting heavier by the second. Billy stepped back so he was about a foot behind Steve, while Steve was trying to hold the gun steady. He held it up – adjusted it – found the line of sight where the two little notches were finally in line – tried to point it at the blue dot –

_There!_

The most generous thing to be said about his second attempt at shooting a gun is that it wasn’t as bad as his first. The pressure on the trigger, the force of the recoil as a burst of bullets exploded out of the barrel, the constant vibrations sent Steve fighting to keep the gun pointed in the general direction of the wall. Any aspirations Steve had of making the target went out the window along with most of the bullets.

Steve pulled his finger off the trigger with _slightly_ more ease this time round after only a second. Billy ducked out from behind Steve, surveying the damage.

“So… were you _aiming_ for the window, or are you seriously just that bad?”

“Shut up, Hargrove,” Steve hissed, pulling the strap off from around his neck.

“Steve, safety,” Billy pointed out.

With no small amount of frustration, he started fiddling with the side, trying to remember where exactly that bloody switch was.

“…Other side,” Billy muttered.

Steve gave a small huff, switching over to the other side of the gun, finally finding the safety. He flicked the switch before slamming it down on the coffee table and started storming towards the kitchen.

“_Steve!_” Billy called out after him, sounding exasperated.

“I didn’t _drop_ it, did I?” Steve wheeled around to face Billy, a murderous expression on his face.

“Steve,” Billy was using a tone of forced calm that didn’t quite mask his amusement at Steve’s tantrum. “Do you want some breakfast?”

Steve glared at Billy.

“Come on,” Billy said, breezing past Steve casually. “You’ll feel better.”

Steve doubted that very much. Knowing Billy, there would be many opportunities he’d find to rub his superiority in Steve’s face.

Sure enough, another was waiting just by the embers of the fire.

“Get the fire going,” Billy all but ordered. “Don’t use the lighter, your lighter fluid isn’t going to last forever.”

“What do you _want_ me to use?” Steve hissed.

“Well, you’ve got some stones from somewhere,” Billy suggested, bending down to search among the tins. “Why don’t you try using those?”

Steve glared at the back of Billy’s head, before bending down to retrieve the stone that had fallen on the floor the previous day – _Night? Evening?_ – and then grabbed the other stone off the counter. Hesitantly, he looked down at them in his hand before he started banging them together.

“Steve,” Billy said, looking up at the noise. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Steve stopped, scowling at Billy. “Trying to get a spark.”

He started bashing the stones together again. Billy started sniggering at his efforts, and the longer he kept going, the more Billy was laughing.

“Oh my god,” Billy howled, tears in his eyes from laughing so much. “Steve, thank you. That is the _funniest_ thing I’ve seen since I got here. That is the most entertainment I’ve had in days, thank you so much, Stevie.”

Steve slammed the stones down on the counter. “You know what, Hargrove? I’m done. I’m _sick _of you being a superior fucking _douchebag!_ You go on about how you’re only ever _pretending_ to everyone, and give me a hard time for ‘pretending too much’ or whatever, like there’s something _more_ to you, but then you turn around and give me _all the same shit_ you gave me in high school. So you know what? I’m done!”

“You done?” Billy asked with a single raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, I’m fucking done with your _bullshit!_”

Billy sat there with that same smug, superior smirk on his face that infuriated Steve. “Do you want me to show you how to _actually_ do it?”

“Like you fucking know?”

Billy shrugged with a smirk, picking up one of the stones. “Well, I know that your first of _many_ mistakes is using two stones. You’ll actually get a spark with a knife.”

“We don’t _have_ a knife, douchebag.”

“No, _you_ don’t have a knife,” Billy pointed out. “_I’ve_ got mine… right here.”

Billy fished a red swiss army knife out of his jeans, flipping out the small blade.

“One of dad’s few words of wisdom was to keep a knife on you,” Billy pointed out. “I never needed it in California, but when we moved out here to fucking Nowheresville, I figured it might come in handy in case my car ever broke down or something, given that mechanics here are about as on it as the high school basketball team. Turns out, I was right.”

Steve did his best to ignore Billy’s comment about the basketball team. So what if his scowl got a little deeper? Billy was so absorbed in his own smugness that he wasn’t likely to notice.

“Your second mistake is the stones you’re using,” Billy explained. “You need a rock with a sharp edge. Something that’s going to scrape away at the steel. It’s about exposing the iron to the air or some shit. So why don’t you and I go on a hunt for some actual flint, now that I know what I’m looking for, and while we’re out, you can show me these magical tunnels that seem to house _lighters_ and _fully operational guns_ and _flamethrowers_ and other crap like that.”

“So hold on…” Steve started, piecing something together. “Yesterday… or whenever… when you asked me to start a fire with those fucking rocks… you _knew_ it wasn’t going to work.”

Billy gave a small shrug. “Yeah, but it was funny to watch you try.”

-:-

Susan hadn’t said a word all morning.

Max would have been worried. If she’d had any energy to be worried about her mom, she would have been. But she was drained. She’d spent so much of herself stressing about Billy’s situation, trying to grieve with her family, and tiptoeing around the ever-volatile Neil who _apparently_ blamed her for what happened to Billy. Which, if Max was honest with herself, he was right to do. He just didn’t realise quite _what_ he was blaming her for.

So she _would_ have been worried about her mother. If she hadn’t been trying not to let herself feel so relieved.

Wherever Neil had driven off to, he hadn’t come back yet. Max wasn’t quite letting herself drop the ‘yet’ at this point, but judging by her mother’s reaction at the empty driveway, they had both drawn the same conclusion. Neil had vanished into the night.

They weren’t quite at the point where they were calling Hopper about a missing person. Max was determined not to let that happen. She wasn’t going to tell her mom she’d _seen_ Neil leave, but she was definitely not about to let Hopper – and undoubtedly the rest of the Party – get involved. While missing persons were definitely being taken more seriously in Hawkins after Will’s disappearance, Neil hadn’t been abducted, or taken by some otherworldly creature. He’d simply walked out and was yet to come back.

And, if Max was being completely honest, so what if he showed up with a snapped neck in a car wrapped around a tree?

Her mom, however, didn’t necessarily agree with her assessment. She looked lost, wandering the house with a slightly vacant expression on her face. At regular intervals, her eyes would glance involuntarily towards the door, or to the clock, or to the driveway, or to the street outside. Watching… waiting…

Waiting for her husband to come home.

Max knew just as well as her mother that such an eventuality would get less certain as the days went on. But it was only the first day. It was still possible Neil had simply left on a soul-searching road trip. It was possible he’d gone to Indianapolis to find a present for Susan to make up for his behaviour the previous evening.

It was possible, but Susan and Max both knew deep down that wasn’t what had happened.

Wordlessly, Susan put down a plate of pancakes on the counter. The same counter Neil had pressed her against less than twelve hours before.

“Are these for me?” Max asked.

A nod. More than what Max was expecting.

Max picked the plate up and took it over to the table.

“These are really good, mom, thanks.”

No reaction. Max decided on a slightly more direct question.

“Mom, where’s Neil?”

There was a sound from the sink of a glass slipping over. Max chanced a glance at her mom. Susan was standing there, tense, her back to Max.

“He’s gone, hasn’t he?” Max asked.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” Susan said quietly.

“Do you _want_ him to come back?”

It was blunt, direct. Perhaps even a little harsh. But necessary. Max needed to hear her mom’s honest opinion while Neil was gone.

“He _hurt_ you, mom,” Max continued. “You _know_ I saw him hurt you. You know I heard every word last night. I’m not an idiot.”

“Maxine, I’m not talking about this now,” Susan said strictly.

“Aren’t you _relieved,_ mom?” Max pressed. “Aren’t you _happy_ he’s gone?”

“Maxine, that’s _enough!_” Susan shut her down. “Your stepfather has just gone out for a little while. He’ll be back soon.”

“Sure,” Max muttered under her breath. “If he doesn’t find the next _you._”

-:-

Of course they were having a fucking argument.

If Steve and Billy were in the same room for longer than a few seconds, then of course they would find anything to argue about. Even if it about something as utterly mundane and unimportant, they’d take two different stances. Steve was pretty sure he’d found himself arguing in favour of Mondale during the election after discovering that Billy supported Reagan.

Today’s argument involved a route home.

Steve was shocked that Billy had allowed him to lead the way to the tunnels. There were, of course, plenty of criticisms over the route he was taking, which side of the road to walk on, whether they should care about walking on the side of the road _at all_ after discovering that Steve could not have cared less about it if he’d tried, and so on.

Once they’d made it to the tunnels, Steve had taken Billy as far as the Hub before insisting that they go back. Billy had wanted to stay longer, to go as far as Hawkins Lab, but Steve had put his foot down and had, at last, won an argument against Billy Hargrove without it getting physical.

Now, however, he was being argued with about the most efficient route home, and it didn’t look like Steve was likely to win this round.

“It’s _my_ house, Hargrove, I know the fucking way.”

“You know the way _in a car_, sure, but we can cut that distance in half if we cut through the houses.”

“We can’t do that!” Steve was scandalised.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because…” Steve hesitated. “It’s people’s houses!”

“Steve,” Billy started, looking at Steve like he was an idiot. “We’re the only people here. Property laws aren’t exactly enforced. We can cut through the houses.”

“Hargrove!”

“Do whatever you want, Steve, but I’ll see you at home. Whenever you finally get there.”

Billy marched off through someone’s front garden, not caring for a second as he trod in the flowerbeds. Steve hesitated for another moment before following, jogging to catch up.

“Are you _sure _you know the way?” Steve asked dubiously as they crossed into a treeline.

Billy gestured ahead. “Your house is on the south west side of Hawkins. We’re on the south east side. We can follow the roads back towards the centre of town, _or_ we can take the much more direct route past the church and through the forest.”

Steve frowned at him. “How do you know so much about all this?”

“About all what?”

“You know, surviving,” Steve said, getting slightly breathless from trying to match Billy’s pace. He was always slightly nervous when he got breathless.

“_Surviving?_” Billy echoed.

“Yeah,” Steve continued. “Like, in the wilderness. Navigating. Starting fires with a knife and a rock. Shooting a gun.”

Billy sighed, easing up his pace slightly. “My dad used to take me on hunting trips. We’d go away during the holidays to places like this where he’d teach me to hunt. Thought it’d _make a man_ out of me. _Straighten me out._”

“Sounds fun.”

“I hated it.”

“Oh,” Steve thought for a moment. “Do you not get on with your dad?”

Billy gave a bitter laugh.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’…” Steve said.

“My dad’s a fucking piece of shit,” Billy said. “Hates almost everything about me. Pretty sure he’d throw me out if I wasn’t at least good at sports.”

“Sounds a bit like mine, really,” Steve echoed. “My dad’s a grade A asshole.”

Billy gave that same bitter laugh. “Stevie, I’m pretty sure your dad’s not even in the same _league_ as mine.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve asked. “Try me.”

Billy snorted. “Alright, my dad thinks that just because he put a fucking _roof_ over my head that gives him a license to treat just about anyone under his roof however he wants. When he’s around, what he says _has_ to go.”

“At least your dad _is_ around,” Steve hit back. “My dad shows up for about an hour a month and tries to do all the parenting he needs to get done in that one hour. Usually to the tune of threats of cutting me off and throwing me out of the house.”

“I would _kill_ for my dad to just throw me out,” Billy said. “Fucking get it over with. Takes away most of his power, too. It’s always a fucking power play with him. He’s got to be in charge. I think that’s why he’s never chucked me out. Knows that once I stand on my own two feet, I’ll be able to hit back.”

“Yeah, well, my dad knows he’s my only shot at a future,” Steve said. “Now that _you’ve_ screwed that up for me.”

“What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Steve gritted his teeth. It had been a throwaway comment, but of course Billy was going to latch onto it. And it was better to have it out in the open.

“You know how I didn’t get into Tech?”

“Yeah.”

“You got in, right?”

“Er… yeah.”

“On a basketball scholarship?”

“Er… yeah, how did you know?”

Steve took a deep breath. “Scouts came to our games. They saw you playing, and they saw me playing. By that point, you’d turned the whole fucking team against me for your _own_ stupid little power play. Nobody fucking passed to me. Coach was one step away from fucking _benching_ me. I might as well have not played at all.”

Billy fell silent at that.

“After that, what did they have to gain by offering me anything? They didn’t see me as a good team player, even if I was occasionally decent at the game. My grades were worse than useless. Of course they didn’t offer me anything.”

“I…” Billy trailed off.

“You want to know why I don’t trust you?” Steve said bitterly. “You took away _everything_ from me. You took away my friends, you took away my team, you took away my fucking ‘keg king’ title and all the rest of that bullshit that went along with it, my popularity, whatever. But you know what? I can get over that. All that high school shit… it’s stupid. What I _can’t_ get over is this. You took away my future, Billy.”

Billy exhaled heavily. “I didn’t know.”

“I know,” Steve said. “Why the hell _would _you? _I_ didn’t tell you. I wasn’t exactly falling over myself to reveal just what a fucking mess my life was. My girlfriend dumping me, my grades slipping because I wasn’t fucking sleeping… If I could have just _pretended_ not to be bothered by it, I wouldn’t have to fucking _deal_ with it all. But my life spiralled after you beat me up that day. And you were a big part of the reason why.”

“Shit, Steve…” Billy muttered. “If I’d known-”

“If you’d known, you’d have kept on doing exactly what you were doing because that’s what you do. My future wasn’t your problem then, and it sure as hell isn’t your problem now.”

“It _is_ my problem now, actually,” Billy said. “If you die out here, I’m stuck here alone. Who the fuck am I going to laugh at all day?”

“Oh, nice,” Steve said dryly. “Good to know you care.”

They’d made it to the church. They stepped out of the trees and across the gravel parking lot and started walking up the path.

“If we cut through the cemetery, we’ll end up on the other side and just keep going straight through the woods,” Billy explained.

“I fucking hate cemeteries,” Steve grumbled.

“Yeah, well, get over it,” Billy shrugged. “There are worse things in the world than corpses.”

They began to pick their way through the various headstones. Steve did his best to avoid stepping on any of the actual graves. He wasn’t superstitious, but there was always something that hadn’t sat comfortably with Steve about treading on the final resting places of people. He’d been to visit a cathedral in Europe once and had spent most of the time watching his feet to avoid treading on any of the plaques marking people he’d only vaguely heard about in history class. This was, if anything, worse, because just about everywhere he put his feet he was invariably treading on something.

Billy appeared to have no such qualms, seemingly viewing the headstones as obstacles rather than markers for actual people, in the same way that the vines were obstacles to be walked over. Speaking of the vines, Steve hadn’t thought it was possible for a graveyard to be any creepier than normal, but somehow, the vines were really adding to the atmosphere –

He stopped dead in his tracks. He wouldn’t have noticed them if he hadn’t been thinking about the vines.

There were three new headstones – he could only tell that they were new because they stood out, stark white marble as yet unmarked by the Upside Down’s vines. It wasn’t the fact that they were new that had made him stop in his tracks, though – it was the names on them.

_Thomas Holloway_

_Janet Holloway_

_Heather Holloway_

The date of death on all three gravestones was the same: July 4th, 1985. Steve felt a twist in his gut at the sight.

“Steve?”

Billy had noticed that Steve wasn’t following. He turned around to see Steve crouching by the headstones, reading and re-reading the names. His brain simply didn’t want to process that information.

Billy walked up to him and glanced down at the names. Steve didn’t see his eyes blink for a fraction longer than normal.

“Were they friends of yours?” Billy asked.

It took Steve a second to realise Billy had spoken, and another second to realise that he’d asked something that required an answer.

“Yeah,” Steve breathed. “Well, old family friends. I’ve known them my whole life…”

Billy stood there awkwardly. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Steve let out a shaky breath. “Fuck,” he finally breathed, his voice shaking. “I… Jesus – Heather was my first kiss, I – They…”

Billy reached out a hand and placed it awkwardly on Steve’s shoulder.

“_All_ of them…” Steve gasped. “They’re all gone… July 4th… That must have been the day we closed the Gate… Fuck…”

There were words carved below on Tom and Janet’s graves – identical epitaphs, words ripped straight from a Hallmark card about being together forever in lives beyond. Heather’s grave didn’t have an epitaph – she was eighteen, of _course_ she’d never thought about what she wanted on her gravestone. Instead there were just some words about what a wonderful daughter she was.

“I can’t believe it…” Steve said, his voice cracking.

Billy took his hand away from Steve’s shoulder. “We should go,” he said softly.

Steve started to nod absentmindedly. He finally found his feet. He started walking away from the graves, but even then, he couldn’t take his eyes away from them. He was looking back over his shoulder, lost in his own thoughts…

If he was right – if July 4th _had_ been the day that they’d closed the Gate – then he’d had something to do with this. Since Will Byers’ disappearance and Barb’s death, the Mind Flayer and the Demogorgons and the Demodogs had only attacked people who’d been _involved._ People like him, like Nancy, like Hopper and Joyce, like everyone at Hawkins Lab who had, in their own ways, _chosen_ to get involved. He could have walked away when Dustin came to him and insisted that he help on the Demodog hunt for Dart. There was that feeling that this group, this core of people, had _chosen_ to become a first line of defence who’d _known_ what they were up against – who were there to stop the monsters from attacking their town – who could let the _innocent_ people of Hawkins go about their daily lives being none the wiser that the monsters under their beds were very, very real.

Seeing the graves of the Holloways had absolutely shattered that illusion. He’d been a naïve idiot to think that the monsters would leave the town alone – to leave those people who were so innocent to their very _existence_ alone.

Steve was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice how far ahead Billy had gotten until he heard him call.

“Steve…”

The use of his name jolted Steve out of his reverie. It took him a second to realise that there was something strange in Billy’s voice. He looked up to see Billy looking at him, his expression unrecognisable. Billy was stood by another grave – Steve could see it was new as well, the dark marble as yet untouched by vines. The name wasn’t visible. Steve guessed, by the way Billy’s eyes met with his before looking down at the grave, that the name was on the other side.

Steve walked up to Billy, a heavy sense of trepidation mounting with every step. He came up to stand beside Billy before looking down at the name –

His jaw dropped. His legs felt shaky. He dropped to his knees and reached out a trembling hand to touch the name on the gravestone…

_Steven Harrington_   
_September 5th 1966 – July 4th 1985_   
_Loving son and friend_

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. He tried to take deep breaths, but air wasn’t going into his lungs. He wasn’t aware of the tears pricking at his eyes. His mind went blank – the only thing he could see was his own name, carved into the dark marble.

“I’m not dead,” was all he managed to say. His voice was high, brittle.

His fingers touched the marble. He traced over the cold indentations in the stone. Surprise was the wrong word for what he was feeling… On some level, he knew that this was likely to happen. He himself had thought he was going to die on that causeway. What he’d said to Hopper… he’d thought at the time that those would be his last words. But he hadn’t appreciated fully that his friends would have truly believed he was dead… That they would have grieved… That they would have laid him to rest.

And seeing his own _grave…_

His mom and dad must have sorted this. He’d thought about them a lot since getting into the Upside Down, he was sleeping in his mom’s bed, but he’d never considered how they must be taking his disappearance. He’d never considered what they’d done about it.

He’d never considered that he was _dead._

-:-

He didn’t remember the rest of the walk home. Billy must have guided him. He didn’t remember breaking down. He didn’t remember frantically digging at the dirt with his hands to try and see what was buried there. He didn’t remember Billy having to drag him away from the grave. He didn’t remember begging to go back. He didn’t remember begging for his family to believe that he wasn’t dead. He didn’t remember Billy half carrying him home. He didn’t remember being walked upstairs and being sat on the bed by Billy. He didn’t remember Billy leaving him alone.

He didn’t remember, but he assumed that these things must have happened. Each left their own mark. He must have been walked home, because that was where he now was. He must have dug into the grave, because there was now dirt on his hands and underneath his fingernails. He must have screamed himself hoarse, because his throat was now scratchy to the point where it was almost unusable. He must have been screaming the same words – _“I’m not dead” –_ because that was what his muscles remembered, even if _he_ didn’t. He must have been carried back, because he couldn’t even stand up straight, let alone walk. He must have been taken upstairs, because he was now on his mom’s bed. Billy must have left, because he was now so very alone.

A soft knock on the door preceded it being pushed open, and Billy sticking his head around the door.

“Hey,” Billy said, more gently than Steve had ever heard him.

Steve managed a small upturn of his lips for a second, before looking down at his hands again.

“I brought soup,” Billy announced, offering a tin to Steve. “Careful, it’s hot.”

“Thanks,” Steve managed. It was all he could do, his voice breaking.

“You okay?” Billy asked, sitting down next to him and handing him the tin. Apparently today’s soup offering was tomato, according to the label.

Steve didn’t so much shrug as tilt his head slightly. “I… I have no fucking idea,” Steve finally managed to get out.

Billy somehow – _somehow_ – had enough tact to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder while Steve took a gulp of soup.

“I never thought about what they would do,” Steve continued. “I never thought that they’d… that they’d fucking _declare me dead_ or whatever. I never thought they’d… _bury_ me.”

Billy let out a long breath. “It sucks,” he finally said.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Steve continued. “I fell into the Upside Down after an explosion that _should_ have killed me. The Gate closed. I was _gone_, you know? But… I never faced the reality that we’re_ stuck _here_. _Nobody’s coming for me. Nobody _can_ come for me. They don’t know I’m still alive.”

“Nobody’s coming for me either,” Billy managed with a small smile. “At least you’re not _completely _alone.”

Steve gave a weak laugh. “Stuck here with _Billy Hargrove_.”

“Stuck here with _Steve Harrington,_” Billy joined in.

“_Steven_ Harrington,” Steve joked. “That’s what’s on my tombstone, after all.”

“Alright, _Steven_,” Billy laughed.

“Did you… Did you see what _else_ they put on that fucking thing?” Steve said, frowning as fresh tears formed in his eyes. “_‘Loving son’. _The last time my dad told me he loved me was probably at my eighth birthday party or something. And I mean, _seriously?_ A fucking _church?_ I don’t want to be buried in a _church._”

“Where _would_ you want to be buried?” Billy asked.

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “I don’t think about these things, I’m _way_ too young. At least… I _thought_ I was way too young.”

Billy leant back, falling back into the bed and folding his hands underneath his head. “I think I’d want to be sent out to sea somehow,” Billy mused. “Like maybe on a boat, or cremated or something, and have someone scatter my ashes into the ocean.”

“Cremated sounds good,” Steve mused, lying back next to Billy with his arms across his chest. “Maybe not the sea part, though. Maybe the woods, though.”

“Well that settles it,” Billy said. “If you die here and I outlive you, I’ll scatter your ashes in the woods. If _I_ die here first, you go to California and scatter my ashes in the ocean.”

Steve snorted with laughter. “I’m not going all the way to California,” he said. “If you’re lucky I’ll find you a stream, though.”

“You’ll go to a fucking ocean.”

“How will _you_ know? You’ll be dead.”

“You might not know that.”

Steve laughed. “Yes, I will.”

“How?”

“Because the chances are, if I end up outliving you, it’ll be because I killed you.”

“Very funny, Steve.”

Steve snorted with laughter before looking over at Billy. “I’ve just noticed, you’ve been doing that all day.”

“Doing what?”

“Calling me ‘Steve’,” he explained. “You’ve literally never called me ‘Steve’ before today.”

“Haven’t I?” Billy asked. “Would you prefer ‘Pretty Boy’?”

“No, no, ‘Steve’ is good,” Steve laughed.

Billy smiled at him. They fell into a silence, but for the first time, it was actually comfortable.

“You know, this has really hammered it home for me,” Steve finally said. “I don’t want to die here. I want to go home. I want to find a way out of here and find a way home, and I want to survive for long enough to do that.”

Billy looked over at him curiously.

“Billy,” Steve said. “I want you to teach me how to survive so we can go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aahhh, I'm so sorry this is late by my standards. Writing Steve and Billy working out how to survive was a bit like pulling teeth at times, particularly given that I've never had to light a fire without matches or a lighter so I had to work out exactly how that worked. Also I wanted a bit of that particular dynamic between the pair. So yeah, it's a bit of a slice-of-life chapter rather than any actual plots developing, getting a bit deeper into everyone's favorite love-hate relationship before a new arc kicks off next chapter with some of the guys back home.


	14. Part 2 Chapter 7: Casualties Of The Learning Curve

The middle of July crept up on Hawkins.

Normality had started to try and force its ways upon the town. Will, Joyce and Jonathan were cleared to move back into their house after Sam finally ascertained that everyone important from the Russian base had been accounted for. There were still some suspects missing, but Sam was happy to account for their deaths in the explosion, and those unaccounted for seemed to be low-level soldiers and scientists who weren’t the biggest threat to national security.

The biggest threat was a man called Colonel Ozerov, who had been apprehended inside the mall. Sam had taken a headshot to Hopper, who in turn had shown it to Robin, asking her to confirm that this was the man who had questioned her and Steve. She had all but burst into tears with relief at the sight of his photograph and the news that he was in custody.

The security measures lifted around her, Dustin and Will – though with the exception of a stay in a very cramped cabin, such security measures had mostly involved men sitting in cars outside the houses. They’d had very little impact on the day-to-day lives of Dustin and Robin, both of whom hadn’t gone out very much since Starcourt.

And Neil Hargrove still hadn’t returned.

Susan spent her days trying to follow some semblance of her normal routine, but she was distracted. She would find herself staring absently out the window at the empty driveway. She would end up lingering by the doorway, pursued by ghosts of Neil and Billy. When she went in her closet, her fingers would linger on Neil’s jackets as she searched for what she would wear for the rest of the day.

She wanted her husband back.

She had decided it was time to file a missing person’s report with Hopper. He was due at their house any moment to ask some questions about his disappearance, but the additional disappearance of the car had given Hopper the impression that Neil had left of his own volition.

She wasn’t sure whether she wanted that or not.

Max had finally started sorting through Billy’s things. She was adamant that they go in storage. Susan wasn’t about to argue – quite apart from anything else, she didn’t have the energy. But there was also the fact that Susan felt uncomfortable about making any permanent decisions about Billy’s possessions. Neil had made it very clear that he felt ownership over Billy, and by extension, all of the things he’d owned, and so getting rid of them without talking to Neil first felt wrong. Then there was the fact that Max finally had something productive to do with herself – a good way to expend her energy in a way that wasn’t lashing out at Susan’s husband.

That was how they were when Hopper knocked on the door.

Susan smoothed down her dress as she let Hopper in.

“Chief Hopper – Ah – Thanks – Thank you for coming,” she stammered, not quite meeting his eyes.

Hopper took off his hat as he walked into the house. Susan showed him towards the couch as she walked through the room absently. She stopped by the armchair opposite as Hopper settled, as though she wanted to sit down but couldn’t quite remember why she wasn’t. A second later, she remembered, making her way towards the kitchen area.

“Would you like some coffee?” Susan offered. “I’ve just made a fresh pot.”

“If you’ve got a fresh pot, that sounds great, but don’t put yourself out,” Hopper replied, trying his best to be polite. It was one of the things Joyce had tried to channel into him over the last few days she’d stayed with him, but he had no idea if it was going to stick.

Susan distractedly poured the coffee into two mugs, before offering one to Hopper. At the last second, she hesitated, realising something.

“Sorry, do you want cream?” she asked in that same apologetic tone. “Neil and I both like it black but I think we’ve got some in the refrigerator.”

“No, no, black is fine…”

“Sorry,” Susan gave a nervous laugh, a hysterical sound that sounded less happy than any laugh Hopper had ever heard. “I’m a bit all over the place today. I’ve been a bit distracted since…”

_Since my husband vanished into the night._

“It’s fine…” Hopper muttered. “Have you heard anything from Neil since he left?”

“No,” Susan muttered, shaking her head quickly as she settled into the armchair opposite. Hopper noted that the living room was much tidier than it had been the previous time he’d sat in this room. “There was no note, no… no word about where he was going… He was always insistent on us leaving notes.”

“Was there anything in particular that would have led to him leaving? Like… did you have an argument that he stormed out of?”

“No,” Susan said defensively. “I mean… we had a fight earlier that evening, but he calmed down. We made up. We spent the evening watching TV and then I went to bed. He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t have just _left_ after that.”

“Do you mind me asking what this fight was about?”

Susan paused. “He didn’t like the punishment I gave Max.”

“What punishment?” Hopper asked.

“Maxine had been out all day,” Susan explained. “We were both very worried. So… when you brought her back, I sent her to her room without dinner. Neil didn’t think it was enough.”

Hopper suspected that the only thing that _would_ have been enough was violence.

“Okay,” he said. “Now, earlier, you said he calmed down. Was he particularly angry during this fight?”

Susan levelled a defensive look at Hopper. “Neil… he gets upset very easily. He also calms down very quickly. He sees red, he gets angry, then he calms down. That’s what happened.”

“And this wasn’t unusual?”

“No,” Susan said quickly. “I mean, he’s been more upset than usual since… since Billy, but that’s understandable.”

“Right,” Hopper said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask this. Why did you wait so long to report him missing?”

Susan looked at him looking slightly scandalised. “I thought he’d just gone to clear his head,” she said, sounding more noticeably upset than she had done all morning. “I wanted to give him a chance to come home.”

“Okay,” Hopper placated. “I get it. Really, I do. It’s just that… In my experience, in these situations, after something like this, when a partner ups and leaves with no explanation after a fight, it’s usually because they don’t _want_ to be found. Now, I can put out feelers – ask around other towns in the area, reach out to some contacts in the Indianapolis PD just to see if anyone’s seen him, but from everything you’ve said, your husband has just left. We can look for him, find a way to contact him, but we can’t make him come home. We can’t even bring you back into contact with him if he doesn’t want us to.”

“W-What happens then?” Susan asked, sounding close to tears.

“Well, then you try a period of separation,” Hopper explained. “If, after a time, one of you wants to make the separation permanent, you file for divorce. Unfortunately, you can’t file for divorce based on desertion, you need to file it on the grounds of the breakdown of the marriage, but the good news is I don’t think you need to prove it to a court in Indiana, but check with a lawyer.”

Hopper knew far, _far_ too much about divorce laws after Diane.

“I’ve just got one last question for you,” Hopper said.

“Go on,” Susan said, sounding guarded.

“Did you _see_ him leave?”

Susan looked down at her hands. “No,” she said quietly.

The sound of a door opening in the hall caught Hopper’s attention. He looked up to see Max coming out of one of the rooms, peering at them both from behind a curtain of red hair. She looked like she was hesitating to say something, before thinking better of it and crossing the hall to go into another room.

“Okay,” Hopper said quietly. “Well, I’ll look into it. I’ll ask around the other local police departments in the area. If I hear anything, I’ll be in touch. But if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about your husband’s wellbeing. He’s probably absolutely fine.”

_He just doesn’t want to come back._

-:-

It was Paul Harrington’s first day back at work.

He was not looking forward to it. His board of directors had, for the most part, kept everything running in his absence, but apparently the shares of the firm had taken a nosedive after news had broken that the managing partner’s son had been killed in what had become known as the Starcourt Tragedy. While board members had given him space until the funeral, his phone had practically been ringing off the hook ever since. Paul knew that the only thing that would appease the freefall that the company must evidently be in, judging by the incessant demands of everyone from his secretaries to the Chief Financial Officer to the manager of the mail room, would be his return to work.

That didn’t mean he was happy about it.

His fears for everything the day could hold were confirmed by the sight of the large flower arrangement that was waiting on his desk. Lilies that reached his chin spread upwards from the vase on the table. A white envelope was sticking out of a plastic clip in the centre. Reluctantly, he opened it to find the most generic card he’d ever seen – a white bird with the word ‘_Condolences_’ embossed in silver on the front. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the hateful thing as he flipped it open.

_Dear Paul –_

That was a joke. Nobody _ever_ called him ‘Paul’ at the office.

_Sorry for your loss. We’re all thinking of you at this difficult time._

There were signatures scrawled all over both sides of the card. The board of directors, his secretaries, names he didn’t even recognise. Harrington Spencer was a big law firm employing hundreds of people both from Indianapolis and towns further afield like Hawkins. It was entirely possible he hadn’t even met three quarters of the people who had signed his card.

It was worse than the lasagnes.

A knock on the door had him dropping the offending card on the table and looking up to see his personal assistant, Annie, at the door. Annie was a twenty-four-year-old graduate from Brown who had started working at Harrington Spencer eighteen months ago. Her family was originally from Hawkins, but had moved away before Annie was old enough to talk. Despite never having met her family, the Hawkins link had been enough to pique Paul’s interest in her application. She’d applied to be the assistant to one of the partners to get some experience in a law firm before applying to law school, but Paul had been intrigued enough to hire her. It had taken three months before she’d ended up working for him instead.

“Hey,” she said with a small smile. “I heard you were back today.”

“Yeah,” Paul replied, with a dismissive gesture towards the flowers. “It’s not even nine and I already have a garden on my desk.”

Annie gave a small laugh, a refreshing sound that Paul had missed over the last couple of weeks. It brought into focus that now, out of that big, empty house, against the backdrop of the cityscape that his floor-to-ceiling office window looked out over, he felt less stifled than he had done since the morning he’d received the news. He could be surrounded by people who were _happy_ – hear things that weren’t the sound of Linda crying. He could deal with normal things – cases, meetings, things that _weren’t_ his only son’s death.

“I tried to talk them out of it,” Annie explained sheepishly. “They insisted. I did manage to stop them getting you a cake, though.”

Paul gave her a small smile, the muscles feeling stiff at the motion, as though he’d forgotten how to do it.

“Thanks,” he said. “I _really_ don’t need any more food in our refrigerator.”

“Are a lot of neighbours giving you oven bakes? They did that when my grandad died.”

Paul laughed – _laughed!_ – “I swear, I’ve eaten nothing but lasagnes for about a week.”

“I should warn you though, Jason’s wife made you cookies.”

“Of course she did,” Paul rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“You’re welcome,” Annie smiled. “If you like, I can move those flowers for you for today to keep up appearances and then accidentally knock them on the floor after you’ve gone home from work today?”

He gave her an appreciative smile. This was why Paul liked Annie. They were on the same wavelength. She knew enough about people to know what the people around her wanted, and enough about interpersonal politics to know the best way to make it happen.

“Listen…” Annie said hesitantly. “I know you’ve probably already heard this a million times already, but… I’m really sorry about what happened to Steve. If there’s anything I can do…”

“If you could keep condolences to a minimum, that would be great.”

“Oh – sorry, I-”

“I meant from everyone else at the office, actually,” Paul clarified with a smile.

“Oh – right,” Annie gave a nervous laugh.

She moved the flowers off Paul’s desk and put them on the small coffee table in front of the couch in his office while Paul settled himself at his desk.

“How’s your wife doing?” Annie blurted out nervously. “With… With it all…”

Paul looked up at her with a neutral expression. “You don’t want to know how Linda’s doing.”

It wasn’t a rhetorical denial that said more about his wife than words ever could. It wasn’t an accusation, thrown out into the room. It wasn’t angry. It was an entirely neutral statement of fact.

“No,” Annie replied in an equally neutral tone, her eyes meeting Paul’s as she stood up straight. “I don’t.”

-:-

El wasn’t an idiot. She could tell Hopper was missing Joyce.

In the day and a half since Joyce had moved back into her own home with Jonathan and Will, the house had suddenly become much quieter. It wasn’t just that there were three less people living in a cabin that was barely comfortable for two people, let alone five, it was also the quietness that came with Hopper’s newfound morose attitude. _Morose._ That was her word of the day.

It had been strange living with Joyce, Will and Jonathan, but nice. Joyce could actually _cook_, for starters. One night she’d made a dish from scratch that Hopper had never managed to get for her in any form, microwaveable or not. Lasagne – _with its stupid spelling – was it spelled with an E or an A at the end? Why was there a G in the middle?_ – had been a whole new experience for her. There was plenty left – it was evident to El that lasagnes could only be enormous. This was good. She liked having lots of food in the fridge.

Will and Jonathan, too, were a whole new experience. So far, the only person her age El had found who would look out for her to quite that extent had been Mike. Will and Jonathan were different – where Mike was always around, determined to be the most important person to her, Will and Jonathan gave her space to be herself. Unlike Mike, who was determined to weave his life intricately and inextricably with hers, Jonathan and Will had their own lives, separate, but close. They would be around, and there was no doubt that they were _friends_, but unless she asked, they would leave her be.

Hopper and Joyce, however… El could see that Hopper wanted Joyce’s life to be connected with his own in the same way that Mike wanted El’s life to be connected with his. He wanted to be the most important person to Joyce. Joyce, however, seemed less interested in the idea. She wanted to spend time with Hopper, to _hang out_, as Mike always put it, but not to get as connected with him as he wanted to with her.

Which was why El had been so encouraging of the idea that Hopper take Joyce out to Enzo’s. Round two. Just the two of them. No kids.

At least, it had been most of the reason.

El had also been thinking, however, about Max. She had heard through snatches of what Hopper had said that Neil had gone – _where?_ – and that Max’s momma had been upset and worried. Max hadn’t been in contact with anyone since Neil had left. El hadn’t tried to reach out to her since that day, because she’d been completely rattled by opening and closing the Gate again.

But she remembered how upset Max had been by Billy’s disappearance. She remembered how broken Billy had sounded in the sauna… how desperate he had been for an escape…

Nobody deserved that.

Wednesday was the date of the big dinner. That was two days away. It had originally been scheduled for Friday, but something had come up involving a Dungeons and Dragons game that Joyce needed to drop Will off at. Will was apparently really excited.

So they’d rescheduled to Wednesday.

El was glad that Hopper had finally decided to find some time to spend with Joyce. She remembered how excited he’d been in the lead-up to their first attempt at a date, even if she _had_ been distracted by Mike’s disappearing act and constant lying. But more to the point, it gave her and Max another window, another chance to try again.

She picked up the radio Mike had given her and switched over to the channel she’d set up with El. Their secret channel.

“Max?” she said hesitantly.

Nothing.

“Max?” she asked again. “…Come in…”

She’d never felt entirely comfortable using the terminology that Mike always insisted on. It felt forced, unnatural. Nobody ever spoke like that anywhere else.

“Max, come in,” El tried again. “…Please?”

Hopper had been trying to teach her manners. Perhaps they were appropriate now –

_“El?”_

“Max?”

_“El, what’s wrong?”_

“Nothing’s… wrong,” she said. “I… I think we can try again.”

_“Try what again?”_

El paused. “The Gate,” she finally explained.

There was a pause.

_“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”_

“Don’t you want to try?”

_“I do – I do… It’s just… last time, it went…”_

“Bad?”

_“Yeah…”_ Max finished. _“Bad.”_

“I want to try again,” El said. “We have to try again.”

_“Are you sure?”_

The hesitant hope in her voice, like she barely dared to let herself feel it, might have broken El’s heart. But it also spurred her on. What she was doing was right.

“I can do it,” she said confidently.

_For Billy._

-:-

It had taken days since the funeral for Linda to find the energy to start tidying.

She’d started downstairs with the pizza boxes. She was yet to find it in her to face Steven’s bedroom. _God_, every time she walked past that closed door she felt a stab of grief. Paul wanted to do something about it soon, he’d kept telling her that it would help her move on, take it off her list, turn it into just another room in the house. She didn’t think it would ever be just another room in the house.

So she started downstairs. Tidying. Washing up. Putting things away. Restoring something vaguely akin to order in her home.

Steven had never left the place in quite such a mess. He always made _some_ effort to tidy up before his parents came home from one of their trips. She’d naively thought that Steven _wasn’t_ this messy, that yes, his room was always a mess, but it had stopped there. That he’d understood that the communal spaces were _not_ just for him, and that they were to be kept ordered. Evidently, that changed when she and Paul were away, because that left the entire place as his.

They had been away a lot. Too much. Too much time spent away from him when they’d had the chance.

And now he was gone.

It was Paul’s first day back at work. In some ways, she was glad he wasn’t here for this. She’d deliberately left it so he _wouldn’t_ see her break down over empty pizza boxes and dirty dishes. But now that it came to it, she wanted someone with her, someone who _understood._ Someone she could speak to about how bad she felt. Paul was in the same boat. She could sob and wail and scream her lamentations about what had happened, what she’d done – what she _hadn’t_ done – as a mother. Paul would understand. He would hold her, rock her through the nightmares that plagued her every night. Images of Steven burning in the horrific fires her imagination would create to turn into that charred, blackened skeleton had her screaming in the small hours while Paul desperately tried to comfort her. Sometimes, it wouldn’t be enough, and she would go to Steven’s room, open his door and see his empty bed. Then the blow of his loss would hit her again, fresh, new, a knife in her heart.

Because the nightmares were real.

As the sun sank lower in the sky, Linda found herself drawn upstairs to Steven’s room. She’d walked past the door several times during the day, but had never found the courage to open it and look inside except when she was in a blind panic following a particularly stressful nightmare. She hadn’t seen it in the cold light of day – only when the empty sheets, rolled up towards one end of the bed, were illuminated by the moonlight. Now, though, she felt a chill run up her back as her hand froze on the door handle.

The room had been the monster of her nightmares for too long.

The door swung open, and once again, the first thing that hit her was that empty bed. She took in the sight – the comforter piled and twisted at one end of the bed, the cushions still imprinted with a dent in the shape of his head. A brilliant golden light filled the room, only caused by the sun starting its descent into the horizon.

She took in the rest of the room. The floor was a complete mess. Dirty clothes were cast all over the place, just about everywhere except for in the hamper that she’d bought several years prior in a vain hope that Steven might _actually_ organise his laundry. She could even see a blue uniform on the floor – one of his spares that she’d made him invest in when he’d announced that he was going to have to go to work dressed as a sailor. As parents, she and Paul had tried to be supportive – Paul, of course, having a few words to say about responsibility – but even _she_ couldn’t deny that the uniform had been one of the funniest things she’d ever seen on her son. Even if it had been so completely adorable in that way that _any_ mother views a ridiculous outfit on her child.

She could remember the exact scowl that Steven had given her when she’d told him as much.

She wandered through the room, taking in every detail, committing it to memory. The ridiculous posters on the wall… the records on the shelf… the half empty glass of water on his bedside table next to a framed photo…

It was as though he would come back at any moment.

She picked up the photo, looking at it. She recognised the place, even if she hadn’t been there when this picture was taken. It was what had become their holiday home upstate, set in the heart of a forest. Every year during Spring Break, Steven would go with a few friends to spend it there on their own. That particular photo had been taken during the Spring Break of his junior year, when he had gone with Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers, Heather Holloway and whoever her boyfriend had been at the time, as well as one or two people he’d played basketball with. Jonathan Byers had taken this particular photo – Steve was sat at the table, his head turned slightly to look at something out of frame. He was laughing, his eyes sparkling and carefree.

Linda was surprised that Steven had kept the photo. Even Paul had picked up on the fact that he was heartbroken after Nancy had ended it. The fact that he had kept a reminder of what had undoubtedly been a very intimate holiday probably hadn’t been the healthiest thing. The friendship with Jonathan Byers had also taken just about everyone by surprise. Steven had gotten to know him through Nancy Wheeler after the disappearance of his brother Will –

_Will Byers._

The name hit her like a ton of bricks.

Will Byers had been dead. Everyone had said so. Even from the first day they’d learnt he’d gone missing, she and Paul had suspected as much. They’d talked about cancelling their business trip – it had been to New York – but when Steven had assured them that he’d be fine, that he was perfectly capable of driving himself to school and back, that he wasn’t going to be cutting through the woods on a bike, they had ultimately decided to go.

In hindsight, it had perhaps not been the best idea, given that Barbara Holland had gone missing from their garden the night that they had left.

Paul had been apoplectic with rage when he’d found out about the party Steven had thrown. It had been reckless and stupid, drinking beer and having friends over to a place that _wasn’t_ familiar while all the chaos around Will Byers was going on. Steven had been completely unremorseful about the beer, but afterwards, Steven had confided in Linda that nothing his father had said to him was going to be worse than how he’d felt about the Holland girl.

But then Will Byers had come back. Even after a body had been found, even after his family had put him in the ground, Joyce Byers and Chief Hopper had managed to find him. He’d come home, safe and sound, and now seemed to be carrying on his life.

_Was it so impossible for a miracle to happen again?_

-:-

The next forty-eight hours passed in a haze for Hawkins. Paul, back at work, was tackling the monumental pile of catching up that had accumulated in his absence. While he was out during the day, Linda found new life in desperate research into the Will Byers case. She kept it from Paul for the time being – she wanted something more concrete than a messy living room – but she would tell him soon.

And Hopper was getting ready for his second attempt at an evening at Enzo’s with Joyce.

El had assured him that he should go straight from work. There was too much going on in the aftermath of Starcourt for him to leave early enough to come back to the cabin and change. So El had encouraged him to take a nice shirt – one that _didn’t_ have a ridiculous pattern on it – to work and change there before going on to Enzo’s. She would be fine on her own.

She just wouldn’t be at home.

It was around midday when Max finally made it to the cabin. They’d settled on a different spot this time – if something _was_ waiting for the Gate in the Upside Down, hopefully a new spot would give them enough time to close it before it found them.

The spot they settled on was about an hour’s walk in the opposite direction to their first location. It was close to the junkyard, a clearing set deep enough in the woods that nobody in their right mind would be around to disturb them.

“Are you sure about this?” Max asked.

El nodded. This was just practice. Open the Gate, close the Gate. Just to practice. To build up her strength. It hadn’t been too hard the last time she’d tried with Max. It had just unnerved her, that feeling of something rushing towards her. She could hold her nerve this time. She knew it was coming.

All she had to do now was to find a vine.

-:-

“Keep it steady,” Billy said softly. “Find your target.”

They were in the woods behind Steve’s house. Billy was giving Steve another lesson in how to use the automatic weapon he’d found in the tunnels. What felt like days of training with an automatic gun were starting to yield some improvements in Steve.

At least, he could now vaguely keep the gun pointing in one general direction.

He was yet to master any kind of control when hitting a target, but at least when he aimed at a target he was only hitting everything in the two metre radius around target as opposed to everything in the ten metre radius of wherever he was standing. Casualties from this learning curve included, but were not limited to, the Miró painting, the couch, the coffee table, the windows, more than a few vines, almost all of the doors in the living room, and at least one of the cupboard doors in the kitchen.

It proved enough of an improvement that Billy would now stand beside him and correct his form as opposed to duck behind him whenever his hand was near the trigger.

Steve was also astonished to discover that there were aspects of Billy Hargrove that were actually tolerable. He had seen a new side – a _human_ side – to Billy that he would have sworn blind a matter of weeks ago could not possibly have existed. Billy had suddenly become more patient in his teaching, less condescending, and generally much more pleasant to be around. Which could not possibly have anything to do with his own newfound desire to learn how to survive. It couldn’t have been his attitude that was part of the problem. Definitely not.

Since Steve had discovered his own grave, he’d found within himself a determination to get home, to _prove_ that he was alive, to see his friends, to see his _family. _He was no stranger to wandering around his empty house, that had basically been his high school experience, but there was a finality now that he felt to this situation. He didn’t know how to get home – he didn’t know _if_ he could get home – but he wasn’t prepared to lie down and accept his fate. Seeing the grave had hammered home to him that there was a very real chance that this _was_ forever. That this _was_ the rest of his life.

A fact driven deeper by the growing awareness that his health was getting worse.

Breathing was getting more difficult with every passing day – or at least, every passing cycle of sleeping and waking. His chest felt like it was on fire. He didn’t know whether an infection was setting in, or whether the Upside Down was finally having an effect on him, but he was feeling feverish, hot flushes and moments of freezing cold. He’d managed to keep the worst of the coughing fits from Billy – he wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want Billy to know the fullest extent of it. He was sure Billy was seeing some symptoms – the way his hands shook slightly unless he was gripping something really tightly, the way a thin sheen of sweat seemed to cling to his forehead permanently – but Billy had never said anything. So Steve had started to recognise the signs of an impending coughing fit. If he could make his excuses fast enough, he’d go somewhere private, shut himself away and let it pass. It would invariably leave him shaking on the floor, struggling to find the strength to stand until a few minutes after it had stopped, but if Billy wasn’t around, he could take that time. He _would _take that time. He would often take a bit longer and not rush himself. If Billy _was_ around, he found himself pushing to get up sooner, to not fall down in the first place, to _pretend_ that everything wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

The only answer he had as to _why_ he was so determined not to let Billy see this was that he didn’t fully trust him yet.

Which was why he had pushed ahead with the lessons. Which was why they were stood in the woods.

A burst of gunfire as Steve squeezed the trigger sent the barrel of the gun upwards, but he managed to keep it still pointing generally in front of him. Billy stepped closer to Steve as he pulled his finger off the trigger.

“You’re not planting your feet,” was the first thing out of Billy’s mouth. Those words that Steve had heard iterations of so many times now held none of the menace they had once held on the basketball court, on the Byers’ driveway. Now, they only held instruction. And Steve was listening.

“I’m trying,” Steve said, adjusting his footing slightly. “Weight on the balls, heavy, just like you said.”

“It’s not _about_ where the weight is,” Billy explained. “It’s about that grounding holding every part of your body in place. You _holding_ your body in place, planting your feet on the ground as an anchor.”

Steve looked at him dubiously.

“Look, it’s like one of those trees,” Billy explained. “Your core is like a tree trunk. It doesn’t move. It has give, but any give is in its roots, its branches. The roots take the brunt of any impact that might move the trunk. The stronger the tree, the deeper the roots. Sure, the branches wave, but the trunk doesn’t. When it does, it’s negligible.”

Steve’s dubious look intensified.

“Your feet are like your roots. The recoil of the gun is like a really strong gust of wind. Your feet have to stay planted like nothing else in order to actually withstand it. You’ve got to _use_ that strength of the ground and stay as strong as possible. Understand?”

Steve raised his eyebrows, his lips parting slightly. A soft noise escaped his throat expressing his complete lack of understanding of Billy’s simile.

Billy rolled his eyes. “Let me show you.”

He came up and stood behind Steve. He wrapped his arms around Steve, his arms following the same lines as Steve’s. His hands closed around Steve’s hands around the gun, his right index finger resting on Steve’s own. Billy’s chest was pressing against Steve’s back, his legs coming behind Steve’s own, in the exact same position, and _entirely too close_. Steve could feel every muscle in Billy’s body taut, the solid grounding of Billy’s body trapping his own, every beat of his heart in his chest reverberating as Steve felt it against his back –

He was taken by such surprise as Billy’s finger tightened around the trigger.

Steve would have ended up on his ass under normal circumstances. It had happened in one of their first lessons. But Billy’s whole body caught him – Steve could feel how firm his posture was as the recoil pushed him back into the trap. His arms would have gone up, taking the gun with them, but Billy’s arms absorbed the shock. He held it steady, every single one of his muscles absorbing the repeated jolts.

As suddenly as it started, it stopped. Billy’s arms vanished as he stepped back, leaving Steve holding the gun slack in front of him, the barrel pointing into the dirt. Steve was staring straight ahead of him at a small cluster of bullet holes in the bark. Close together. Deliberate. No scattered lines of bullet holes that invariably occurred when Steve lost control.

“There,” Billy said in that satisfied way of his. “That’s the kind of strength and support you need. Did you feel it?”

Steve was stunned. Yes, of _course_ he’d felt it. It was impossible _not _to feel it.

“You need to engage just about every muscle in your body,” Billy explained. “It’s not enough to just hold your arms steady, it’s got to be your feet, your legs, your core, your shoulders, _everything_. If you’re not engaging something, you’ll lose control of the gun and it’ll fly upwards, or sideways, or backwards sending you onto your ass. You’ve got to have _every _part of your body grounded. And it starts with _planting your goddamn feet._”

On another day, Steve might have acted on the flash of annoyance that made itself known at that utterly hated, hateful phrase. But as quickly as it came, it vanished, like lightning in a storm, as his eyes focused on the cluster of bullet holes in the tree’s bark. He’d _felt_ how much more Billy had been doing than he had. He couldn’t deny the results.

Steve lined himself up. He pressed his feet into the dirt – far more than he had ever done before. He steadied himself, grip tightening, actively engaging every single muscle in his arms. He wasn’t just pointing the gun now, he was _holding _it there. He tensed his stomach muscles, engaging his diaphragm, his abs, his shoulders –

He pulled the trigger.

It took more strength than he had thought possible, but the gun _didn’t_ fly upwards. Steve managed to keep it trained in one direction. The force of it was ripping and tearing through his body as he finally appreciated what it took to keep a military-grade assault weapon in check – his broken ribs were in agony –

He pulled his finger off the trigger and finally let it stop. His arms _hurt_ as he lowered the gun. He flipped on the safety, took the strap off from around his neck and shoulder and put the gun on the ground, doubling over as he tried to regain control over his breathing.

_Please don’t start coughing. Please._

“There you go,” Billy was saying proudly. “You _actually_ planted your feet that time. Look at that!”

Steve looked up. A new cluster of bullet holes had made its way into the tree. While not quite as closely packed as Billy’s attempt, there was no wild veering off to one side. It was the closest he’d come to actually aiming at a target. Steve finally felt recovered _enough_ to stand up, taking a tentative step towards the tree.

“You’re a natural, Stevie,” Billy said proudly, clapping a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “A bit more practice and you’re going to be giving the Terminator a run for his money.”

Steve was still trying to process the sight in front of him, his brain slowly catching up. He had _done it._ He had actually managed to keep control over the gun. Slowly, surely, it started to sink in…

“I hate to say it, Hargrove, but you were right,” Steve finally managed to say. “Planting my feet really-”

A resounding crack echoing through the air cut him off. The ground shook beneath their feet like an earthquake. Steve staggered to one side, stumbling to catch his balance.

As suddenly as it started, the ground stopped moving. Steve and Billy looked around wildly, trying to see what had caused it.

It took them all of three seconds to notice the way the horizon had lit up, bright red, behind the house.

“It’s the light,” Billy said. “_Come on!_”

Billy took off at a sprint up the small ridge and back through the trees towards the house. Steve stopped for all of a second to grab the gun before running after him.

They broke out into the garden, seeing the light in a different direction towards the east. It was clearer now as to where it was coming from, much clearer, the way the red light lit up the horizon, but it was also much closer than the first light had been.

Billy barely broke his stride as he took in the new direction. Any loss in speed was made up by the sudden acceleration as he sprinted, desperate adrenaline driving every step. Steve felt that same adrenaline, but his body was protesting too much at every step.

Not that he was about to stop.

He had his suspicions as to what that light was. He’d seen the Gate in the Russian base. He couldn’t be certain that it was the same, but he was damned if he wasn’t going to make it this time to find out. If he could see for certain, if he could get there in time, he could go _home._ He could go to a hospital and get his ribs checked out – he could see his mom and dad again – he could tell them that _he was alive…_

Thoughts of home spurred him on to push through the agony in his chest, further aggravated by his earlier attempt at shooting. It wasn’t that far – he had to keep up his pace, he had to keep going –

He couldn’t.

His chest finally gave out, a coughing fit sending him staggering – doubling over – crouched on all fours as he desperately tried to regain control of his breathing. He had to get back up – _come on, get up! GET UP!_

Billy was ahead of him – he evidently hadn’t noticed Steve fall. He was too focused on the red light ahead, he was close, maybe he would make it –

And that was when Steve saw what Billy had missed.

They weren’t the only ones descending on the light.

A huge shadowy spectre loomed above the forest. An enormous, many legged creature was barely visible through the trees – a creature Steve had only ever seen a child’s drawing of.

This was Will’s Shadow Monster. The Mind Flayer.

This, at last, brought Steve to his feet again. No longer running to the Gate, he ran to Billy. A spurt of desperate energy had him chasing Billy down, giving him just enough speed to finally catch up to him just as he was about to burst into the clearing with the red light –

His hand closed around Billy’s arm. Billy wheeled around, a look of surprise on his face. No, not just surprise – outrage as well.

“Billy!” Steve hissed desperately, trying to keep quiet, pulling Billy behind a tree. “Look!”

Billy followed Steve’s gaze upwards into the sky. He saw the looming shadow, his face looked confused.

“What-”

Steve pressed a hand over Billy’s mouth. They had to stay quiet. If the Mind Flayer saw them – if it knew they were here – they would both be as good as dead. They couldn’t outrun it forever. They couldn’t fight it. Will Byers had tried, and it had set off a chain of events that killed an entire laboratory full of soldiers and scientists.

As well as Bob Newby.

The Mind Flayer loomed over the Gate, the red light unable to penetrate the monster’s shadow. Where it had lit up the sky, it now stopped, not even reflecting off the underbelly of the beast. Steve remembered Dustin prattling on and on to him about black holes one day in the car – not exactly an unusual occurrence, Dustin was always going on about some science shit or another – but the little that had penetrated Steve’s brain was about how black holes absorbed everything, even light. Steve hadn’t quite understood that at the time.

He definitely understood now.

What he _didn’t_ understand was what the Mind Flayer was doing. The Gate was _right there._ It was definitely a Gate, Steve could see that very clearly now. The Mind Flayer could just go through. They could follow it once it went through – everything he had ever discovered about the Mind Flayer indicated that going through to Steve’s home and generally destroying everything was essentially the Mind Flayer’s mission in life.

_So why wasn’t it going through?_

“Steve,” Billy whispered in his ear. “We need to go through that crack.”

There was too much truth in Billy’s words to ignore. With the Mind Flayer around, the Upside Down had suddenly become every bit the nightmare Steve had feared when he’d first arrived. He was sick – he knew he needed a hospital – they had to go through that Gate, Mind Flayer or not.

If they ran into their world, there was a chance they could outrun it on their turf. If they ran, the Mind Flayer might not catch them.

“We run on the count of three,” Steve whispered back. “Run and don’t look back.”

Billy nodded.

“One… two-”

“_Wait!_” Billy suddenly hissed, grabbing Steve’s arm.

Steve didn’t need to ask Billy what the problem was. He could see for himself what was wrong – the light in the Gate was dimming, flickering… fine threads were stretching together, knitting together, sealing the crack…

The Gate was closing.

“We have to get out of here,” Steve breathed. “Back to the house. Quietly. _Don’t _let that thing see you.”

They slipped back through the trees. They were moving slowly, _much _more slowly than their mad dash just a few minutes before. When they were finally far enough away from the Mind Flayer that they couldn’t see its head any more through the trees, they broke back into a run, not stopping until they made it to the house.

“What _was_ that thing?” Billy gasped.

Steve struggled to catch his breath. “We call it the Mind Flayer.”

“Catchy.”

“_I_ didn’t name it,” Steve hit back indignantly. “I think the shitheads took it from that game they always play.”

“Dungeons and Dragons?”

Steve frowned at Billy curiously.

“Max talks about it a _lot._”

Steve acknowledged that with a head tilt. “Look, with that thing around, we’ve _got _to be careful,” he said firmly, his tone brokering no room for argument.

“Why?” Billy asked, ignoring Steve’s attempt at taking charge. “What’s so dangerous about it?”

Steve gave Billy a look like he’d grown an extra head. “Didn’t you _see _that thing?”

“Yeah, but what will it _do?_” Billy asked. “Like – _eat_ us or something?”

“No, it’s-” Steve struggled to find the right words. “It – like – controls people’s minds. Makes people do completely insane stuff. It wants to take over the world or something.”

Billy raised his eyebrows dubiously.

“It’s what happened to Will Byers,” Steve explained. “He got caught by it last year. He ended up basically summoning an army of these monsters to Hawkins Lab which killed a load of people.”

“What?” Billy sounded confused and more than a little frustrated.

“It’s… hard to explain…”

“Try me.”

Steve wanted for a brief second to try and argue, but at the look on Billy’s face, decided against it. So he started to explain. He explained all about Will Byers going missing back in his junior year. He explained about the party he’d had where Barb went missing, he explained how Nancy became obsessed with finding her – how she and Jonathan Byers had gotten close. He explained how he’d become jealous, how he’d fought with Jonathan, how he’d gone to apologise, only to find Nancy and Jonathan getting ready to fight a monster. How he’d ended up helping them. How that had led to Nancy taking him back. How Nancy had found out that Barb was dead, how she’d never dealt with it properly. How he, Steve, had refused to help – how Nancy had finally confessed that she’d never loved him. How she’d gone to Jonathan instead. How Steve had ended up helping Dustin. How they’d finally, _finally_ closed the Gate once and for all.

Only for the Russians to open the Gate up again.

“So that crack in the ground,” Billy said. “You think it’s a Gate?”

Steve nodded, his voice hoarse.

“So we go through one of those, and we’re home?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathed.

“Why are these Gates opening up again?” Billy asked. “That one couldn’t have been open for more than ten, fifteen minutes, tops. What’s going on?”

Steve shrugged. He didn’t have any answers to this now. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe… maybe the Russians did something when they opened the Gate this time round. Maybe… I don’t know, the _fabric of reality_ or whatever has been damaged.”

“The ‘_fabric of reality_’?” Billy echoed scornfully.

“I don’t fucking _know_, Hargrove,” Steve hissed. “I don’t know _what’s _going on.”

“Maybe someone’s opening it up again?” Billy suggested.

Steve shook his head. “They’re opening it up in Hawkins,” he explained. “The people in Hawkins who _know_ about the Gate – who would stand an outside chance of knowing how to open one – wouldn’t do it. They know the risks. They wouldn’t open the Gate.”

“Maybe… they’re doing it for _us?_” Billy suggested. “They might be trying to bring us home.”

“No, they wouldn’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because they don’t know we’re even _here!_” Steve snapped.

Billy looked slightly taken aback. “How do you know that?”

“Because,” Steve explained, any flash of energy that had come with anger vanishing into the night. “If they knew we were here, they wouldn’t have buried me.”

-:-

Paul pulled his car into the driveway, but didn’t immediately get out. A light was on in the hallway. Three days of being back at work, throwing himself into whatever he could distract himself with, surrounding himself with people who had _other_ things on their minds, had made him realise how _little_ he wanted to come home.

Spending his days with Annie had made him realise how little time he wanted to spend with Linda.

Eventually, though, he dragged himself out of the car. He walked into the hall, taking longer than strictly necessary to hang up his jacket. He could hear Linda doing _something _upstairs. He didn’t care to find out what.

The last few days had brought about an enormous change in her. Something had catalysed her into activity. She wasn’t spending her days lying on the bed, or sitting on the couch for hours on end, or wandering the hallways like a ghost. She’d tidied the living room. It had given Paul hope for her. For them.

He walked into the tidy living room – now returned to its default state of spotless order. He threw himself onto the couch and thought about turning on the television. It was just time for the seven o’clock news. The question was whether he could brave watching yet another feature on Starcourt.

He’d just made up his mind to watch the headlines when Linda appeared in the door, clutching a manila file of papers and newspaper cuttings.

“Paul,” she said in a passable, if not slightly forced attempt at her usual brisk, business-like tone. “There’s been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

Paul raised his eyebrows. “Should I be worried?”

“No, no…” Linda said, settling down on the couch next to him, putting the file on the coffee table. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

Paul leant forward in his seat as Linda opened up the files to reveal pages after pages of newspaper cuttings and documents.

“What’s all this?” Paul asked, curious. Cautious. He picked up the top newspaper cutting – it was the front page of the paper from July 5th, announcing the tragedy of Starcourt.

“Well…” Linda began, sounding as cautious as Paul felt. “I know how this is going to sound, but…”

Paul scanned the front page, reading through the article while only half listening to Linda. It was clearly written from the earliest stages of the news breaking, with little to no concrete information, only speculation.

“…I don’t think Steven is dead.”

Paul’s hand tensed, clenching tightly around the newspaper. He managed to avoid saying anything, simply looking at his wife as she began to flick through page after page of newspaper cuttings.

“I know it sounds crazy, but look,” she explained in earnest. “Will Byers went missing in the woods a couple of years ago. A body was found days later, and someone conducted the autopsy – only I checked, and it _wasn’t_ the usual coroner.”

She handed Paul a scan of a newspaper article from the day Will Byers was found.

“Will Byers was then found a few days later, after Joyce Byers swore_ up and down_ that the body they buried wasn’t his. And she was right. He came home.”

Paul closed his eyes, holding the paper scan of the article in front of his face so Linda wouldn’t see it.

“What if it wasn’t just Will Byers?” Linda continued, oblivious to her husband’s reaction. “Steven never tidied up the house – he _always _tidies up the house for us when he knows we’re coming home from a trip. Which _means_ he either forgot, which he _never_ forgets, or he _didn’t have a chance._ Something else happened – something they’re not telling us-”

“I’m having an affair,” Paul said quietly.

He didn’t mean to say it. He wasn’t planning on telling Linda _anything_, he never did, but it slipped out in barely more than a whisper.

But Linda barely missed a beat. “ – But they’re not telling us something,” she continued, like nothing had happened. “We were shown that _thing_ and were just _told_ to believe that it was him-”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Paul asked incredulously. “I said I’m having an affair.”

“Paul,” Linda cut across him coolly. “If I started breaking things every time you got hung up on a secretary, we wouldn’t have anything in the house. I’ve long since made my peace with the fact that you can do what you like, so long as you come home afterwards. Now, as I was saying-”

“That’s just it, I don’t _want_ to come home anymore!” Paul snapped, standing up. The fact that she wasn’t taking this seriously – was barely even having a _reaction_ – was hurting him more than he thought possible.

Finally, Linda looked up at him. “What are you saying?” she asked, a quiet dignity to the venom that was simmering below the surface of her words.

“I… I can’t do this anymore,” Paul explained. “I’ve been trying to take care of you… I know it’s been hard on you, losing… losing him, but… I can’t do it. These last few days… Where she’s been taking care of _me_… That’s been such a relief, Linda, I can’t tell you, because it hasn’t just been hard on you.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been upset,” Linda’s voice was like ice. “But I think I’ve had a _license _to be sad. I just lost our son-”

“_And so did I!_” Paul burst out. “I’ve been _trying_, Linda, I really have. I’ve been _trying_ to hold it all together. I put together a funeral, I’ve been trying to make sure you eat, to look after you because you were too much of a _fucking mess_ to do it yourself! And I…”

Paul ran his hands over his face as Linda stood up at last.

“I was _so glad_…” Paul continued, “…When you _finally_ picked yourself up, when you _finally_ started taking care of yourself, but now I find out that the _only_ reason you’ve even been _close_ to some sense of togetherness was because you think that _Steven_ _isn’t dead?_ Do you even _hear_ yourself?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but-”

“We _just _buried him, Linda!” Paul snapped, throwing the piece of paper back down on the file. “Last week. Now is the time to start healing, start to _move on!_ Not drag yourself down in a load of fucking conspiracy _bullshit!_”

“If you expect me to believe that _skeleton_ was Steven-”

“That is _exactly _what I expect you to believe!” Paul snarled. “We buried him. _Days_ ago! He’s gone! None of _this,_” Paul gestured at the file, “is going to bring him back!”

“Will Byers came back,” Linda said defensively. “There’s _something_ that these people aren’t telling us. I can’t accept that he’s gone, Paul, I can’t do it!”

Paul closed his eyes, his face screwed up in frustration. All energy gone from his fight, his shoulders sagged as he turned away.

“And I can’t do this,” Paul breathed. “I can’t look after you anymore. I can’t watch you get your hopes up and pick up the pieces again when you finally have to face the fact that he’s gone. I can’t stand by listening to you deny the fact when I need someone to help me through this. I can’t do this alone. But doing this with _you…_ That’s what this means.”

Linda stepped back as though she’d been slapped. “So _what?_” she asked tentatively.

“I’m sorry, Linda,” Paul said softly. “I need to go.”

He started to head towards the door. It took Linda a second or two for her brain to catch up.

“Paul,” she said softly. There was a broken fragility to her voice, a shattered glass ornament.

Paul’s step faltered for the slightest moment, but he carried on towards the door. He had to.

“Paul!” she called again, a little more loudly.

Paul couldn’t look back at her as he walked into the hall.

“Paul!” Linda began to follow him as he got his jacket and pulled it on. “Paul, wait!”

She sounded close to tears, so completely and absolutely desperate.

“Paul, please don’t go,” she begged as he opened the door. She desperately tried to catch the door, to hold it shut, but it took him all of a second to get it open, swatting her hand away.

“I’m sorry, Linda,” he muttered under his breath, still not looking at her.

“Paul, please don’t go,” she begged frantically. “Please don’t leave me, Paul, please, I can’t do this on my own, please, Paul-”

Paul was out the door and walking towards his car. He pulled open the door as Linda ran out, grabbing the car door and holding it open.

“Please, Paul, please don’t leave me here alone, Paul, _please!_”

Paul pulled the car door shut, watching as her hand slipped away from the door like it was greased. He started it up as sheer habit of safety had her taking several steps back. It was only as he started to pull the car out of the driveway and back into the road that he looked back at her in the rearview mirror, standing there, alone, in the now-empty driveway, tears pouring down her face as she sank into the ground.

But Paul rounded a corner and focused on the road. He couldn’t afford to look at her anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this bad boy is almost 10000 words, which, while at times is slightly all over the place, particularly when it comes to Max and El, kind of brings a few things into focus. I've been SO EXCITED for the Mind Flayer to FINALLY SHOW UP! Now it's not just our favorite idiots being morons towards one another, they've FINALLY GOT SOMETHING TO FIGHT AGAINST!!! Also I've got a really fun B-plot coming up involving Steve's parents that is going to run throughout the rest of the story. I'm really looking forward to writing it...
> 
> Also I 100% included that little aside with El wondering about the exact spelling of lasagne because I don't know whether it's spelled differently in the USA. I went with the Italian way of spelling it because that was what made my spell-check happiest, but my apologies if that's incorrect.


	15. Part 2 Chapter 8: Like Demogorgons To A Flame

Steve had always thought of himself as someone who very definitely did not pace. Which was why it came as a surprise when he caught himself pacing back and forth around the room, running a hand over his face.

“Steve, will you _sit down?_” Billy insisted. “You’re making me dizzy just watching you.”

Steve ignored him. He didn’t really care about Billy’s feelings of anxiety or dizziness – his own panic was going through the roof. But he had to keep a level head for long enough to just _think._

“We’re screwed,” he muttered under his breath, his voice higher than he would ever admit. “We’re completely screwed.”

“Steve, come on,” Billy said, rolling his eyes. “It didn’t see us. It really can’t be _that _bad.”

This, at last, stopped Steve in his tracks as he looked at Billy incredulously. Inexplicably, he began to laugh. Well, at least, he started involuntarily making repeated high hysterical noises in rapid succession. To call it laughter may have been generous.

“Billy, that thing will _kill_ us!” Steve finally spluttered. “Actually, scratch that. It won’t kill us. It’ll take over our fucking _minds_ and turn us into fucking _monsters!_ If we ever _do_ get home, we’ll probably end up trying to kill everyone!”

“Steve-”

“You can _forget_ about seeing Max again!” Steve ranted hysterically. “God help her if you ever do – that thing made Will Byers _kill_ a load of people! Billy, if that thing finds out we’re _here_… We’re _never_ going to be able to outrun it. We’ve _got_ to get back through a Gate!”

“Steve…” Billy stood up, holding out a hand –

“We’ve got to be careful…” Steve continued his pacing. “Like – _so_ much more careful than we’ve been. Target practice – oh _shit,_ that was a total waste of bullets. And even just getting water from that stream, we can’t let it see us! And – _SHIT!_”

“Steve-”

“If the Mind Flayer is here, that means its army must be here too,” Steve thought aloud. “Fuck, I _knew_ it was too good to be true… Demogorgons, Demodogs, and I don’t know _what_ else… Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _FUCK!_”

“_Steve!_”

Billy put his hands on Steve’s shoulders, finally holding him still. Steve was breathing hard, running his good hand through his hair.

“Steve,” Billy said softly. “It’s okay. We’ll sort something. We can go back to those tunnels. You said there were more guns there – we can get them all and bring them back here. This Mind Slayer-”

“Flayer,” Steve corrected.

“Whatever – This _Mind Flayer_ hasn’t caught us yet. We’ll be careful. We’re not dead yet.”

“We can’t just _go to the tunnels_ anymore, Billy!” Steve hissed. “Didn’t you hear what I told you about the tunnels being a _part_ of the Mind Flayer? It’ll _know_ we’re there!”

“Did it know you were there when you went to set it on fire the first time?”

“Uh – yeah, that was the point of _setting it on fire!_”

“Did it know _before_ you set it on fire?”

“No, but-”

“No buts,” Billy said firmly. “We can go. We can be careful. We’ll go in and out, get the weapons, and be back in no time. Easy.”

Steve was shaking his head dubiously. “This is insane…”

“Steve,” Billy said. “It’s our best chance.”

Steve paused. He looked at Billy in what he was sure was the same expression he’d given Dustin last year when Dustin had handed him his bat and told him to protect them before going into those very same fucking tunnels. He was, if possible, less happy about it this time round.

“Fine,” Steve conceded. “But – we plan this. We do it on _my_ terms. If I decide to pull the plug on this shit, you come back with me, no arguments. And _I’m_ in charge.”

Billy smiled at him with a glint of that mischievous look he’d always had at school, only this time, it was softer. Affectionate rather than menacing.

“Fine,” Billy grinned. “You’re in charge. Deal.”

-:-

“…And let me tell you now,” Hopper told Joyce, “that kid did _not_ want to turn on the siren.”

Joyce’s face lit up as she laughed at a story Hopper had told her about his failed attempt at running the outreach programme at Hawkins Elementary, which had involved Hopper trying to be enthusiastic but ultimately ending up traumatising a room full of small children. Ever since then, his deputy had run it.

It was their second attempt at a date, and by all accounts it was going well. The conversation was flowing as easily as the wine, which Hopper had delegated to Joyce to choose after his embarrassing attempt at pronouncing ‘Chianti’ the last time he’d been at Enzo’s. Joyce herself was relaxed for the first time in… she didn’t even _know_ how long. What staggered her was how much she was enjoying herself, how _happy_ she felt with Hopper, now that they were both on the same page that wasn’t called ‘denial’.

She hadn’t felt this happy since Bob.

With Bob, though, things had been different. There had been this _thing_ that she couldn’t tell him about, a thing she had to keep him from. He couldn’t know about the Upside Down. With Hopper, though, everything was out in the open. Hopper knew. Hopper was part of it. They were in it together.

It was comfortable.

Another glass of wine accompanied their dessert. Joyce had been looking wistfully at the tiramisu, and upon her proclamation that she was full, Hopper had suggested getting one to share. Joyce rolled her eyes at that jokily, saying that sharing dessert with her wasn’t romantic like in the movies, it was a battle for whoever got the most. So when the waiter arrived with two forks and one plate, Hopper smiled as he held it aloft like a sword.

“Shall we?” he smirked at her.

She smiled back as menacingly as she could manage. “Prepare to die.”

It turned into every bit the battle that Joyce had promised. The dessert just managed to hold its structural integrity as Joyce plunged the fork into the centre, blocking Hopper’s own. Eventually he found a way to stab it somewhere else in the middle, and it eventually split apart into two pieces, both of which fell over on the plate. It was immediately apparent that Hopper had the bigger half, so Joyce playfully swiped some of the cream from the top with a cheeky grin.

“Oh, is that how it is?”

Joyce smirked at him as she put the fork in her mouth, before immediately blocking Hopper’s attempt at stealing some of hers.

“Told you,” she said triumphantly. “Sharing dessert with me is dangerous.”

“I should arrest you for theft.”

“Try it,” Joyce grinned. “See where those handcuffs end up.”

Hopper’s eyebrows shot up as he leant back in his chair, his mouth open slightly in surprise. “You’re a dark horse, aren’t you, Byers?”

She didn’t answer, she just continued to give him that triumphant grin.

“Speaking of arresting people,” Hopper said, his tone changing as he leant forward conspiratorially. “We’re closing in on Kline. DA says we should have enough evidence to arrest him in a couple of days, we’re just waiting on one more document to come through.”

It was Joyce’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise. “Does the DA normally get involved in these things?”

“Not normally at this stage, no,” Hopper said. “It’s different this time, though. He’s a politician, and quite a senior one at that. And this isn’t just corruption, it’s treason. We can’t tell the public about it, but we’re probably going to arrest him on corruption charges before quietly handing him over to the Feds. That’s why we need the DA involved. Just to make sure he can’t get out on bail before the Feds make him face justice.”

“Oh,” Joyce said, following vaguely.

“Some better news, though,” Hopper’s tone changed abruptly as he realised the table next to them was looking at them curiously. “I spoke to the powers that be, and they’ve found you a job at the Hawkins PD.”

If Joyce had been surprised before, it was nothing to how she felt now. “What?”

“_Detective Byers,_” Hopper elaborated. “I mean, you won’t be a detective because you haven’t been to the academy or anything, but there’s an opening as a secretary. It’ll mean you’re in the loop.”

“Hopper, I…” Joyce struggled to find words. “We were just joking around, I’ve… I’ve got my job at Melvald’s, I’ve got the kids to think about…”

“You won’t be on the front line,” Hopper said. “It’s a desk job. You’ll be answering calls and stuff. And the pay is better than Melvald’s. I know you’ve been there a long time, but this would be better for you. You might find it more fulfilling.”

“Are you saying that I shouldn’t find working at Melvald’s fulfilling?” Joyce asked guardedly.

“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying,” Hopper fumbled over his words. “I just… I just think you’re a very smart woman who took the first job she found after a messy divorce that left her raising two kids on her own, and now she’s staying at a job that maybe doesn’t use her _many_ talents to their fullest extent.”

Joyce smirked as he tripped over himself desperately trying to find the right words. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Hop.”

Hopper froze, giving her a relieved smile. “Is that a yes?”

Joyce took another sip of her wine. “Hop, I’m not going to give you an answer right now,” she explained. “It’s a big decision. I want to talk it over with the kids. But – I will think about it.”

-:-

Linda felt hesitant knocking on the door.

It had almost been a logistical nightmare getting here after Paul had taken off with the car. She had almost called ahead to cancel. These people had moved out of state after last year, and she had only gotten the number for them through Nancy Wheeler, which had _not_ been a conversation she’d enjoyed. However, she’d called them on Wednesday before trying to tell Paul what she was doing, and they’d arranged to have lunch at their new home. When Paul had taken off with the car, she hadn’t been able to do anything, hadn’t even been able to _think_ beyond the white noise that was filling her mind. It was only when some paper-pushing office clerk had called her at nine o’clock that morning that it had even occurred to her that she no longer had a car to drive out of state. Which proved to be far less of a problem than she’d thought at the office clerk’s call.

They had wanted to arrange a time to tow Steven’s car back.

Linda had jumped at the opportunity, asking how soon they could get it back to the house. Paul had made Steven keep a spare key to the car in a locked antique cabinet purely because he hadn’t trusted Steven not to lose his keys, or lock them in the car, or leave them somewhere, or any one of a million other things. So when they’d dropped the burgundy car back outside the driveway an hour later and had Linda sign more documents than she’d done when starting at Harrington Spencer, she’d left it all of about five minutes before getting the spare keys and started the long drive to a small town in Illinois.

A little over two hours later saw her turn into a cul-de-sac and into a driveway of a tidy little place in a town called St Joseph. The single storey house was small, with a beautifully manicured lawn with flowerbeds under the windows. She paused at the blue door, hand frozen on the knocker, feeling suddenly very nervous. A second later, though, and she found it in herself to knock three times.

The door opened to reveal a portly man – though he had definitely lost weight since leaving Hawkins – who smiled genially at her.

“Mrs Harrington,” he said, waving her inside. “Lovely to meet you!”

“You must be Mr Holland,” Linda greeted, holding out a hand for him to shake.

Mr Holland took her hand in both of his own, shaking it enthusiastically. “Please,” he corrected with a broad grin. “Call me Tim.”

Linda gave him a small smile as Marsha Holland suddenly appeared from a room off to the side, a spotty apron wrapped around a red dress.

“Linda!” she exclaimed, greeting her with a hug. Their phone conversation two days ago had cut through a certain amount of the awkwardness, but for someone who had spent a certain amount of her life making dinner parties into a profession, Linda felt oddly uncomfortable.

“Please,” Tim said with a smile. “Come in, have a seat.”

Linda followed Tim into a living room, feeling completely out of place. The living room was about as far from Linda’s own ordered haven. Two large couches with floral patterns sat in front of the walls at right angles. A large bay window took up another wall, while the far wall opposite the door was dominated by a fireplace. The cabinets and bookcases were cluttered, absolutely covered in photographs of Barbara Holland.

Linda felt her gut clench at the realisation that she didn’t think she _had _that many photos of Steven.

Marsha had vanished inside the kitchen again, but emerged a second later clutching a tray with a jug of lemonade and three glasses.

“It’s homemade,” she explained. “I always find when the weather is like this it’s just perfect.”

Tim gave a genial laugh as Marsha poured out three glasses. “Nothing is better than Marsha’s lemonade on a day like today,” he told Linda.

Linda felt a twist of pain in her chest – she and Paul had never been this open, this _supportive_ of each other at any point in their marriage. She was pretty sure the last time Paul had looked at her like Tim was looking at Marsha right now had been when he’d held Steven for the first time, about ten minutes after giving birth.

And Tim was looking at her like that over _lemonade._

“I must say,” Marsha was saying as she handed a glass to Linda. “I was surprised to get your call the other day, Linda.”

A flicker of surprise crossed her face for a second as she registered the possibility that there were, in fact, places where the Starcourt Tragedy was _not_ in fact the only topic of conversation.

“Oh,” she muttered. “Well, you probably haven’t seen-”

“Oh – no, we know _why_ you called,” Tim clarified. “This is only _Illinois_, not the outer reaches of Siberia. We… we get the news.”

“I’m so sorry, Linda,” Marsha said softly. “I know how hard it is. When our Barb vanished… I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lost.”

“Thank you,” Linda murmured.

“We _met_ Steve, didn’t we?” Tim asked, looking over at his wife. “Last year, he came to dinner with Nancy a few times, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes!” Marsha said. “He was lovely – always offered to help with the washing up.”

Linda gave a small, slightly surprised smile. She’d had no idea that Steve had ever met the Hollands, let alone gone to dinner with them and – and – and _washed up afterwards?_

“I… I never knew you knew him,” Linda said softly. “He never mentioned it.”

Marsha looked surprised by this revelation. Nancy had started organising dinner with them every few weeks at some point over the previous summer, and had started bringing Steve along somewhere around mid-August. The dinners had continued until Marsha and Tim moved out in late December, though Steve had stopped being a feature after their dinner when they’d announced that they’d hired Murray Bauman. Nancy had explained that she and Steve had broken up at a party at Halloween.

“Now that I think about it,” Tim mused, “he never really mentioned his home life to us. He’d usually talk about applying to college when we asked him about himself.”

Linda looked at her lap as she remembered that argument. She remembered how disappointed she’d been in Steven, how angry Paul had been at him for messing up something so important. She’d been upset too, with no idea what to do about his future.

It had turned out that his future didn’t matter. His life had come to a sudden halt at a period – a period called Starcourt.

“We… we weren’t that close,” Linda murmured. “Paul, my…”

She suddenly found the word _husband_ catching in her throat.

“We were away a lot for work,” Linda finally managed. “Steven stayed home for school. He managed.”

Marsha and Tim looked sympathetic, with that pitying, slightly pained expression Linda had seen on far too many people.

“How _is_ your husband handling it?” Marsha asked softly.

Linda let out a deep shaking breath, running a hand over her face. “He left me last night,” she said.

She hadn’t meant to say it – it had just burst out involuntarily. She didn’t know _why_ she was opening up to a couple of total strangers in a way that she’d never even opened up to her own parents before – distance ran in the family. However, once it was out in the open, it suddenly felt less… taut. The fact seemed to be pressing a fraction less on her mind, slightly easing up.

“Shit,” Tim breathed.

“Was it because of…?” Marsha asked tentatively, trailing off.

“Steven?” Linda finished. “Yes. There was also an affair involved – there’s _always_ an affair with Paul – and – and-”

Linda swallowed the lump that formed in her throat.

“And the fact that I’m not sure he’s dead,” Linda concluded.

The atmosphere in the room changed suddenly. It wasn’t the sad but sympathetic atmosphere – it shifted to one that was suddenly uncomfortable, very similar to the atmosphere Linda had felt when Chief Hopper had arrived to break the news about Starcourt.

“You think I’m crazy,” Linda said bluntly. “Paul did too.”

“No,” Tim said. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy. I just think you’re…”

“Grieving,” Marsha finished for him.

Linda looked up at them, confused for a moment.

“Has anyone explained the five stages of grief to you?” Tim asked.

Linda looked at him blankly.

“Well, Marsha and I went to couple’s counselling after Barb vanished,” Tim said. “Best idea Marsha has ever had. It brought us closer, helped us deal with it _together_. And one of the things our therapist told us about was the five stages of grief. There’s denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. It _sounds_ like you’re in denial.”

“But what if it’s _not?_” Linda asked in earnest. This, _this_ was why she’d come all the way to Illinois. “I think there’s something wrong with what they’ve told us, something _more_ at play. I don’t know if Starcourt had anything to do with what happened to your daughter, but there’s _definitely_ something that we’re not being told-”

“Linda,” Marsha said gently but firmly. “Let me give you some advice. Don’t go down that road. They gave you a body. You had a funeral for him. That’s more than we had for Barb for a _really _long time. We let ourselves live in denial for so long that when they _finally _gave us an answer, do you know what I felt above all else?”

Linda looked at her, eyes wide.

“_Relief,_” Marsha said. “I didn’t feel sad, I’d had my sadness come and swallow me whole and spit me back out again. It was like I could _finally_ let my girl go.”

Linda shook her head, tears springing into her eyes.

“Linda,” Marsha reached out and placed an arm gently on her shoulder. It was strange, the physical contact from a total stranger. “I know it’s hard. I know _how_ hard it is. But please, do yourself that favour. Let him go.”

Linda was fighting back tears – tears she felt like she ought to be ashamed of, but the Hollands seemed to be so _understanding_. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she struggled to form the next sentence, before she finally lost her battle with her own sadness. She slumped forwards into Marsha’s arm, who caught her and pulled her into a hug. Linda had never felt anything like this before – she hadn’t _met _Marsha until less than ten minutes ago, and here she was, sobbing into this woman’s shoulder. She had _no idea_ what to do. Eventually she gasped out what she’d been trying to say.

“I don’t know how.”

-:-

The day of the big Dungeons and Dragons game arrived.

It was the first time the Party had seen each other all together since Billy’s funeral. There had been occasional conversations – El and Will had been living together for a couple of weeks, and Lucas and Mike had been in touch, but there was definitely a distance between them all that hadn’t been there before.

Dustin had practically been MIA. He’d spent his time either with Robin or on his own. He wasn’t sure why, but he just didn’t _want_ to spend his time with the Party right now. By the sounds of things, neither had Max.

Lucas and Mike had been in conversation with each other over their radios about Max and El. Neither of them had quite known where they stood just at the moment. El had been distant from Mike since Starcourt, and Mike just assumed it was because she was tired and recovering. Max, on the other hand… well, that was more complicated. Although by now it seemed to be a widely accepted rumour that Neil had walked out on them, Lucas still wasn’t about to call up the house to find out, and Max hadn’t reached out to Lucas herself.

_She’s grieving_, his mom had said. _She just needed time. She’s lost a lot in a short space of time. Let her come to you. She’ll come back to you in her own time._

Lucas had desperately tried to ignore the slightly too forced optimism in her voice as she had said it.

Still. They’d all confirmed they were coming. The Party was going to be back together again for the first time in far, far too long. Things were going to be different, certainly, but they were all still friends. They were all still going to have fun.

This was a certain amount of the reason why Lucas had practically leapt out of his seat at just about every knock on the door of the Wheelers’ house after Will had arrived with Jonathan.

Max was last to arrive, skateboard tucked under her arm. She gave a slightly forced smile at Lucas as he grinned at her, enthusiasm about seeing her barely contained inside him as he waited for her to make the first move.

“Hey,” he said slightly breathlessly. Memories of the last time they’d seen each other, of his parents ushering him out of the house under incredibly tense circumstances while Max’s continued tirade at Neil had drifted through the window, Neil’s unspoken slurs still ringing in his ears.

“Hey,” Max replied awkwardly. Lucas’ smile dropped a fraction, staying hitched up out of habit rather than genuine emotion at the way Max seemed to be avoiding his eyes.

“I missed you,” he blurted out. “You’ve not been on your radio.”

“Yeah, I…” Max shrugged uncomfortably. “The batteries ran out… I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to get any new ones.”

“I’ve probably got some spares,” Mike chipped in, demonstrating about as much respect for privacy as anyone who’d known him for five minutes would come to expect. “I’ll ask my mom, hang on, _MOM!_”

Karen Wheeler did not immediately reply, prompting Mike to shout again.

“Mike, it’s not a big deal-”

“_MOM, DO WE HAVE ANY SPARE BATTERIES?_”

Karen Wheeler’s voice drifted down the stairs with some protest about being in the bath. The shouted conversation continued as Max and Lucas looked at each other with identical dubious expressions on their faces. Lucas rolled his eyes at Max behind Mike’s back, prompting a small laugh from Max.

He felt more at ease at the sound of her laugh. The small victory was enough to make him feel more comfortable. He hadn’t lost his connection with her completely.

Mike finally got an answer about a kitchen drawer, and he went and extracted a new pack of AA batteries and handed them to Max.

“There you go,” Mike said. “Just in case there’s another code red.”

“Is that _likely?_” Lucas asked sceptically.

Mike shrugged. “You never know. Now the Russians are involved, who knows what could happen?”

Lucas shrugged, casting a cheeky glance at Max, but his face fell when he saw that she’d retreated back into herself, avoiding his eye in exactly the same way as she’d done beforehand.

“Everyone’s downstairs,” Mike said, oblivious to the change in Max’s demeanour. “We’re all set up, we’ve just been waiting for you. Come on.”

Mike led the way, leaving only Lucas to notice how Max hesitated before following.

“Shall we?” Lucas prompted.

Max forced a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes before following Mike downstairs. Lucas tried to return the smile, feeling an unpleasant pit welling up at the bottom of his stomach. He followed her down towards the basement, before stopping on the stairs as Max reached the bottom.

El had stood up immediately as soon as she saw Max. The pair fell into an easy hug, the awkwardness of everything unsaid vanishing from the air. Max looked happy with her, a genuine smile settling on her face as El asked how she was. The interaction was easy, effortless. Max was _comfortable_. And it clicked.

Max had been reaching out to El.

Lucas wasn’t upset by this. He’d meant what he’d said to her in the drive back from Starcourt that morning – as long as she was reaching out, that was a good thing. As long as she wasn’t trying to do this alone, he didn’t mind that he wasn’t the one she was talking to.

But was it so much to ask for her to still be _comfortable_ around him?

-:-

Paul fell back against the leather couch in his flat in Indianapolis, a glass of red wine in one hand and an arm around Annie’s shoulder. She curled up into his side, tucking her bare feet up onto the cushion. He flicked the television on and let the sound of the news broadcast wash over them.

There was something astonishingly peaceful about it.

“This is nice,” he murmured as Annie rested her head on his shoulder.

She gave a small hum of agreement.

“I don’t remember the last time I had an evening like this,” he elaborated. “Just sat in front of the news after a long day with a beautiful woman. And…” he broke off, something catching in his throat, only a little tickle compared to the throat-closing feeling he’d experienced even a few days before as he swallowed. “After everything that’s happened, it’s just… _nice. _To – to be with someone who’s… who’s _happy._”

“I understand,” Annie said, looking up at him. “I had this boyfriend in college, all he ever did was complain about _everything._ I tried to be supportive, but it was just… it was _everything._ So I ended things. Had a fresh start. I did what was right for me, just like you did.”

Paul smiled, raising his wine glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

Annie gently tapped her own glass against his, a soft _ting_ echoing around the room before slowly being replaced by the newscast that washed over them.

_“…Earlier today, Lawrence Kline, mayor of Hawkins, Indiana, was arrested by police authorities in connection to what has become known as the Starcourt Tragedy.” _

Paul’s attention snapped away from Annie and straight onto the television. He almost spilled the wine all over himself as he desperately extracted his arm from around Annie to turn up the volume. Larry Kline was an old friend of his – why had he been arrested?

_“An investigation with the District Attorney has turned up evidence that he accepted bribes to cover up dangerous failures to meet safety regulations that ultimately led to the gas explosion earlier this month.”_

“Paul, what’s going on-” Annie began to ask, before being frantically shushed by Paul.

_“Starcourt Industries paid Kline a total sum amounting to over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to allow their new mall in Hawkins to pass safety inspections, despite oversights in the piping and electrical wiring. These dangerous elements, combined with a cheap, flammable cladding and a lack of suitable fire safety precautions, caused a gas explosion that followed led to one of the worst tragedies the town has ever seen, killing almost thirty people at an after-hours event at the mall.”_

Paul was shaking. He had no idea he’d ever felt like this before. The newscast faded into white noise in his mind as it continued to elaborate on the tragedy, playing footage of the smouldering remains of the fire at the mall after emergency services had arrived to tackle the blaze.

Paul could barely think straight – Larry had been a friend – a _close_ friend. And not just to him. Tom Holloway, too – he’d been close. The three families – the Harringtons, the Holloways and the Klines – had formed a trifecta of wealth, influence and power in Hawkins. Three close friends who practically _ran_ the town. Paul had made generous donations to the Kline mayoral campaign, Tom Holloway hadn’t let any anti-Kline articles get run through the Hawkins Post, either during the campaign trail or since his election.

The fact that Larry would take bribes that would ultimately result in the deaths of Paul’s son and the entire Holloway family made him sick.

“Paul?” Annie asked, gently putting a hand on his arm.

He jumped at her touch. He suddenly realised she’d been saying his name for the past minute as his brain caught up with the time. He also suddenly realised that the news made him feel physically sick.

He bolted to the bathroom, just making it in time to retch up most of his dinner. Annie looked completely bewildered as she followed him.

“Paul, are you _okay?_”

Paul knelt in front of the toilet, his head resting on his arm that leant on the toilet seat. His eyes were closed – he was breathing hard – his brain still trying to process –

“He was my friend,” he eventually breathed. He had no idea if Annie could hear – he discovered that he didn’t care. “He was my friend, and he… he killed them,” his voice was rising. “All those people, he _killed _them. He took bribes that killed them. Tom – Janet – Steven – _Oh god, Steven-”_

He broke off as sobs caught in his chest. It took so much more effort to swallow this down.

“He killed my _son,_ Annie,” he choked out, trying not to let his tears show.

Annie looked lost for a second. Eventually, she rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I get it, I really do-”

“No, Annie, you _don’t!_”

He stood up quickly, pushing her hand away like a brand. She flinched from his newfound ire.

“You don’t have a _hope in hell_ of getting it!” he stormed. “You’ve never had a kid, you’ve never been a _parent!_ And Larry – he was my _friend!_ I _put him_ where he is now! I _gave _him the _chance_ to be mayor, and he… and he fucking does _this?_ He took my _son_ from me! And I…”

Paul fell back against the wall, his hands running into his hair and gripping against the roots, all energy from that flash of rage gone.

“I let him,” he gasped out, his voice a desperate, broken sound. “I told Steven to get a job there. I let Larry take the money and kill my son.”

Tears were rolling down his face – he couldn’t do anything to stop them. Annie took a tentative step towards him.

“Paul, sweetheart-”

“Don’t call me that,” Paul hissed almost inaudibly, his voice low and dangerous. “I’m not your sweetheart. _Fuck._”

Annie didn’t dare say anything. She had no idea how to deal with Paul like this.

“Shit,” Paul breathed. “I shouldn’t have left – I shouldn’t have come here – _Fuck – _Linda – Shit, she was onto something.”

“What?” Annie breathed.

“She said there was something else going on,” Paul elaborated, more for himself than Annie. “I mean, she was saying some other completely crazy stuff, but she was onto something. _Fuck – _I thought that was the problem, but it was – Larry – he was – _Shit!_”

“What are you saying?”

“I should never have left,” Paul breathed, pushing himself away from the wall. “I – _shit, _I need to go back. I need to go back – _Fuck!_ _He_ was the problem, not Linda. He took my son from me; I _won’t _let him take my marriage too.”

“But…” Annie stammered. “What about us?”

Her voice was tiny, and she felt even smaller at the look Paul gave her.

“Annie, surely you knew I didn’t _love_ you?” he explained. “I didn’t leave my wife for _you_, I left to get away from her because I _needed_ to get away from her. I thought… I thought you knew that.”

The look on her face said it all.

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” he muttered. “But right now, I need to go.”

He breezed past her, his hands still shaking, the glass of wine still unfinished on the coffee table.

“Paul, wait!” Annie begged, in a frighteningly close manner to how Linda had begged two nights before.

Paul paused with one hand on the door handle.

“Close the door on your way out.”

-:-

Steve’s plan was simple: go to the tunnels, go to Hawkins Lab, get as many weapons as they could find or carry, whichever was the limiting factor, and come back as quickly as possible. And in the process, ideally not alert anything to the fact that he and Billy were living, trapped, in the Upside Down. He had spent the last two days planning the optimal route to Merrill’s farm.

Billy had been keeping a discreet eye on the Mind Flayer’s movements. The huge, hulking shadow was visible from most places, so Billy had been going out under strict instructions to stay hidden. He’d been watching what it had been doing – it seemed to be hovering over the same stretch of forest that both temporary Gates had appeared. They hadn’t been too far apart from each other. Steve’s current theory was that whatever instability was causing the interdimensional breaches was spreading, cracking the walls between realities.

And the Mind Flayer was waiting for one such opportunity to arise.

As such, they had a pretty good grasp on the Mind Flayer’s movements. If they were right, which Steve could only pray that they were, the Shadow was not likely to be a problem. What he was far more worried about was the Mind Flayer’s army.

Steve couldn’t be sure that there _was_ such an army. He still hadn’t _seen_ anything, and, as Billy kept pointing out, the presence of the Mind Flayer did not _necessarily_ mean that a huge pack of otherworldly monsters was nearby. However, that went against just about everything Steve had ever known about the Upside Down. The Mind Flayer had its army to do its dirty work. There was a _reason_ a pack of Demodogs had unleashed itself upon Hawkins Lab. The Demodogs protected the Mind Flayer. It stood to reason that they’d be around.

That said, Steve hadn’t actually _seen _any monsters. And neither, it seemed, had Billy.

One of the few things that Steve and Billy had agreed upon had been a strict no-talking policy outside of the house. It had actually been the first thing that the pair had immediately agreed upon with no arguments – something that surprised them both. However, Demogorgons hunted using sound as much as anything else. They _had_ to stay quiet.

In fact, the only argument they were still yet to resolve was what to prioritise bringing back.

Billy was adamant that taking the guns would be best. They were more versatile, longer range, and generally much more effective weapons. Steve agreed with all these points, except for the fact that he’d _seen_ how effective fire was on creatures from the Upside Down. There was a reason why the Mind Flayer had been so keen to stop the scientists from Hawkins Lab from burning the tunnels.

“I’m telling you,” Steve said. “The flamethrowers will be about ten times more effective on anything we find.”

“Steve, they’re _guns._ These demo-hounds or whatever can’t be immune to bullets. Not if they’re flesh and blood.”

“You’ve not _seen_ these things, Hargrove,” Steve hit back. “I’ve seen how effective fire is on them. I’ve seen how effective bullets are on them. Trust me – fire is the way to go.”

“You don’t even know how to _use_ one of those things.”

“I’ve been practicing.”

Confusion flared up in Billy’s eyes. “When?”

“Last few days,” Steve said. “And I tested it a bit beforehand.”

“And you didn’t _tell _me?” Billy said, visibly annoyed. “Steve, you know how badly your first attempt with a gun went – what if you’d set fire to the house? What if you’d hurt yourself?”

“_Jesus_, Billy, I didn’t know you cared.”

“You should have told me,” Billy snapped. “We’re supposed to be a team.”

“Billy,” Steve said defensively. “That’s probably our best chance of surviving-”

“And if that thing had seen you, then it would know we were here,” Billy snapped with a sense of finality. “That’s what _you_ were worried about. _You _were the one who was freaking out. You take one of those things, you’re going to draw everything that’s out there towards us like moths to a candle. We’ll be screwed.”

Steve’s eyes darkened at Billy’s attitude, but he did feel a slight twist of guilt. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he conceded. “But I’m serious. There’s a _reason_ they were burning the tunnels last year. And that was because fire is the best thing we have to hurt these monsters.”

“And how did that work out for the soldiers again?” Billy pointed out.

Steve opened his mouth, but no retort came out. No witty remark, no clever pointing out of something, no air of superiority as he realised he’d lost the argument.

“Alright,” Steve conceded, trying for a compromise. “I won’t take the flamethrower. You’re right about them being really fucking obvious out here. But _please,_ Billy, if we _can_ bring one of those things back, please don’t fight me on this. I don’t have the time to make you see my side.”

Billy’s eyes darkened. “Those things are _dangerous,_ Steve. _Everything_ is going to find us if we use it.”

“I know,” Steve said. “But if those things _do_ find us anyway, they might be our best chance at surviving.”

Billy looked at him with that same black anger in his eyes, before turning and picking up the gun. “We need to go, Steve.”

Steve hesitated, pausing only to look at the back of Billy’s retreating head as he made his way downstairs. Silently, he reached into his pocket and felt the cold metal of his lighter. He still didn’t know quite where they’d landed on the issue, but he could only pray that Billy wouldn’t kick up too much of a fuss if the occasion arose.

They couldn’t afford to argue once they were outside.

Billy looked over at Steve as they stood by the front door.

“Ready?” Billy whispered.

Steve swallowed as he nodded.

Billy held up three fingers.

_Three, two, one – GO!_

Steve turned the door handle and swung it open to allow Billy out first. Billy held the gun aloft – after that lesson, Steve had conceded that if anyone was going to hold the gun, it absolutely _should _be Billy. Steve slipped out behind Billy, closing the door as quietly as possible.

They walked out into the dark street, the eerie silence feeling so much more pressing than usual. Steve was tense at every slightest movement – he wheeled his head around at the sight of something moving in his periphery, but it was just a flake of that ash drifting through the air. He peered into the darkness, trying to discern whether there was anything more to it than that.

Billy looked at him curiously at his sudden movement. Steve eventually made eye contact and shook his head, before pointing down the street, indicating that he thought they should continue.

Still, though, Steve couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they were being watched.

They slipped through the streets of Hawkins like ghosts. Every now and then, Steve would stop at something, staring out into the darkness. The most he would see at any point would be the distant outline of an enormous, many-legged spidery creature looming over the forest, but it had its back to them. It wasn’t watching. Every time he saw that creature was a reminder that they needed to be _fast_ about this.

Steve picked up the pace, quietly forcing Billy to move faster as they slipped through downtown Hawkins. They slipped past Melvald’s, past the movie theatre, and out down one of the longer, winding streets that led into the more rural areas, and down into Merrill’s farm.

If Steve had been tense before, it was _nothing_ to how he felt now. The trees that lined the route felt _dangerous_, as he couldn’t see _anything_ beyond a few feet past the treeline. The forest could be hiding anything – an enormous Demogorgon, a ravenous pack of Demodogs, his imagination was going haywire. More worryingly, Merrill’s farm was close to the sites of the last two Gates. They had gone the long, urban way round to try and minimise the chances of being seen by the Mind Flayer, but now, they were approaching it. They wouldn’t come into its shadow, but they’d be far closer to it than Steve was even remotely comfortable with.

The most terrifying moment was when they broke out of the treeline to cross the open field to get to Hopper’s hole.

It was a mad dash, stealth being sacrificed for speed as they sprinted towards the opening. Steve’s imagination went into overdrive as the flakes of ash blurred into pale lines in his vision – any one of those lines could be a Demodog – or worse –

Billy reached the hole first, but waited for a second to usher Steve in. Steve slipped down into the tunnel, looking up at the opening to see a shadow of Billy crouching, gun held aloft for a split second, before he jumped down into the tunnel beside him.

Steve gave him a quick smile before leading the way down the tunnel.

If he had hoped that his fears would ease up once they’d made it into the tunnel, he was sorely disappointed. Images – _memories _– of vines springing to life and wrapping themselves around Mike Wheeler’s leg sprung into his imagination. He couldn’t stop thinking about the stories Hopper had told about those vines coming to life and trying to drag him into a black abyss. In his mind’s eye, every single vine twitched before he’d start, look at the individual vine properly, and force himself to see it sitting there, still, inanimate.

_For now._

They finally came to the Hub. Steve counted the tunnels round the outside walls, before finally settling on one that he was fairly certain was the correct one for Hawkins Lab. He was proven right a second later as he started to remember familiar twists and turns. He’d only been there once, but he _remembered._

They were in the right place.

Steve was still extremely tense about the vines. He found himself taking lighter, quicker steps. His feet stayed in one place for the shortest amount of time possible. He didn’t understand how Billy was still taking such heavy footfalls.

He almost gasped in relief as the tunnel opened up into the enormous cavern that had, once upon a time, been the area beneath Hawkins Lab. His face broke into a broad grin at the sight of their destination.

The grin spread even wider as Billy emerged, looking around, before pointing to the rigid straight outline that could only be a gun.

Steve bent down to gently extract it. Billy was doing the same on the other side of the room, combing the ground for anything that could be a weapon. Steve mimicked him, scanning the dark shapes that littered the floor.

His heart leapt as he saw something a fraction larger than the gun slung around his shoulder, a slightly different shape, a silver metal canister attached to the side.

He bent down to pick it up – the vines hadn’t tangled themselves quite as thoroughly around this flamethrower as they had done around everything else.

“Steve, what are you _doing?_”

Steve looked around at Billy’s low, venomous hiss.

“Billy, _please, _just-”

“Steve, I told you, we can’t afford to prioritise those – _not_ while there are still guns around!”

“And I told _you_, these are a _hell _of a lot more useful than those guns!”

Steve stood up, still clutching the flamethrower as he crossed the distance between himself and Billy.

“Steve, we can’t carry it back with us!”

“Billy, we shouldn’t argue about this right now-”

“And we shouldn’t be having this argument _at all!_” Billy hissed, his voice rising. “You _know _how dangerous those things are!”

“Billy, _shut up!_”

“You have _no idea _how reckless you’re being with both our lives!”

“And you have no idea what we’re-”

Steve suddenly broke off and froze. Every muscle in his body that had been screaming with fear and paranoia for the last few days was suddenly paralysed with fear. Billy had frozen too, his own body practically quivering with tension at the sound that had cut Steve off. A sound that was far, _far_ too close.

Behind Steve’s back, another low, dangerous growl sounded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not actually very happy with large parts of this chapter. This is sort of a two-part crucial episode in the plot. It was going to be one part but I've been so busy and it was turning into something really quite long, so I copped out and stuck a cliffhanger in there. However, Billy and Steve are in mortal peril now, so I guess that's something.


	16. Part 2 Chapter 9: Monsters In The Closet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple of minor trigger warnings (though nothing even remotely as bad as Neil Hargrove...) Nothing particularly distressing, but always better to be safe than sorry:  
1) Very mild period-typical homophobia, no actual slurs or even anything particularly derogatory, just some slight turns of phrases that I wouldn't use nowadays and a somewhat confused reaction.  
2) Description of postpartum depression, again not very graphic but potentially triggering for someone who is suffering/has suffered postpartum depression.

Steve turned slowly to face the noise.

_No sudden movements…_

His heart was pounding in his chest as he found himself staring down at a creature, crouched on all fours, each of those legs ending in terrifyingly sharp claws that Steve knew could rip through flesh and bone like it was nothing. The oh-so-familiar face was closed, each of those five flaps that he knew housed rows upon rows of sharp teeth rippling slightly at the tips, a growl humming from that grotesque mouth. A horrifying feat of evolution that could only have occurred in this nightmarish reality, every inch of it designed to harm, kill, devour large prey.

Prey like Steve and Billy.

The creature started advancing on the pair. Steve started backing away slowly. Every bit of that monster was poised to strike – Steve was getting ready to run – he was not prepared to become dinner.

Billy had evidently had similar thoughts. His eyes were wide as he raised the gun in his arms to point it at the Demodog.

“Billy!” Steve hissed as a warning.

“We kill that thing before _it _kills _us!_” Billy spat back.

“They don’t hunt alone! We shoot it, all its friends will know where we are-”

“I’m not prepared to wait that long!”

“_Billy-_”

Too late.

A burst of gunfire shattered the tense silence as the creature let out several whines of pain. Steve froze, staring, horrified, at the creature. Silence reigned once again as Billy pulled his finger off the trigger, a blazing anger in his eyes as he looked at the monster in front of him. The Demodog had stopped advancing, head bowed, coiled into itself as it staggered back a step. Billy’s mouth spread into a menacing grin at the retreat –

A low growl from the Demodog caused that grin to fall from his face faster than the bullets had flown through the air to be replaced by a look of horror and confusion.

The creature raised its head.

“Run,” Steve said.

The face opened up as an otherworldly scream ripped through the air. Billy and Steve didn’t wait another second as they turned on their heels and sprinted down the tunnel.

Steve shot a glance over his shoulder at the sound of a growl as the creature jumped through the air after them. He dodged sideways as the creature landed where he would have been a second before. Those vines that he had been so terrified of on his way to the lab now seemed to conspire to trip him up – he stumbled through the tunnel, hardly giving a thought to Billy.

Not that this mattered. Billy was sprinting along in Steve’s periphery, managing the treacherous terrain about as well as Steve – if anything, he was managing slightly better. He held the gun across his body, his hands near the trigger in case it was needed.

It wasn’t long before the singular scream of a Demodog turned into a cacophony. Echoes of screeches sounded throughout the tunnel and Steve _knew_ that this was what he’d been dreading – a pack of Demodogs hunting them down in that tunnel. They couldn’t outrun this – these things were _fast_ – they couldn’t outrun those monsters.

But they had to.

Steve thanked whatever deity or devil that watched over him for the familiarity he now had in the tunnels. He burst into the Hub, crossing it in seconds before habit carried his feet to the tunnel that led to Hopper’s hole. His heart almost gave out as he caught glimpses of things spewing out of some of the other tunnels, but he had to keep going – he had to run – he _had_ to make it to that hole – even if he knew what was happening.

They were being herded.

_A hive mind,_ that was what Dustin had called it. All of these things shared a consciousness – their thoughts were one. If they could make it to the hole, _that _was their one chance to escape. If these things trapped them _before_ he made it to that rope, they were dead. There was no other hope. They _had_ to make it.

He was so focused on his goal that it took him a second to notice Billy wasn’t beside him anymore –

“_STEVE!_”

Steve staggered to a halt at Billy’s scream. Billy had tripped at the entrance to the tunnel. Steve’s heart almost gave out at the sight of the Demodogs descending on him. One grabbed Billy’s leg in its enormous maw. Billy let out an agonised scream.

“Steve, _help me!_”

Billy didn’t take his eyes off of Steve. His arms flailed, grabbing at the vines. But the vines were just as dangerous, wrapping themselves around Billy’s arms, holding him still while the Demodog tried to drag him back.

“_STEVE!_”

Steve suddenly remembered the weapon in his hands.

The flamethrower was an identical model to the one he had taken before meeting Billy. The one he’d practiced on. He thanked _god_ he’d worked out how to turn the fucking thing on before now.

It operated simply – a flammable gas and a spark started a pilot light, and then the flames were unleashed by a spray of fuel. He had to look down to find the dial that started up the gas flow, but he knew where it was. He didn’t bother trying to find the little button that sent a spark – it was too dark. He simply reached into his pocket and found his lighter.

“Steve, _DO SOMETHING!_” Billy screamed, the monstrosity still dragging him back.

He flicked the lighter near the barrel of the weapon. His hands were shaking. He clicked it once, twice, three times, four –

_There._

Steve’s hands moved back and found the trigger that would send the flames across the tunnel. He put one foot behind the other, aimed, and –

A jet of flame sailed across the space between them. The tunnel lit up with bright orange light as fire sailed over Billy’s head, catching the Demodog right on the arch of its neck.

The Demodog screamed. Its maw released Billy’s ankle as it staggered back with an agonised screech. Steve took a few steps forward, squinting against the sudden light, but even though he could hardly see a thing, he could hear that it wasn’t just that Demodog screaming.

It was all of them.

Steve could see just enough to point the flame squarely at the Demodog’s head. It screamed as it staggered back further and further –

But Billy was screaming too. Steve couldn’t see properly, but in his overenthusiasm, he must have caught Billy with the flamethrower too – the fuel burnt hot – even Steve could feel that –

The vines had also uncoiled themselves from Billy’s arms, but Billy was screaming in too much pain to notice. Steve released the trigger, holding the flamethrower to the side with his good hand, pilot light still on, while using his left arm to help haul Billy to his feet. Billy was still screaming as he leant heavily on Steve’s side, barely able to put any weight onto his leg as Steve half-dragged him back along the tunnel.

“Billy, come on, we’ve got to move!”

Billy, thankfully, seemed to have enough presence of mind to try to stagger onwards. Leaning heavily on Steve, they managed to pick up the pace.

They rounded a corner – the hole was in sight –

Steve’s heart almost gave out at the sight of four Demodogs tearing down the tunnel towards them.

Steve managed to practically throw Billy in the general direction of the rope. The blonde staggered and collapsed onto his knees, his hands catching around the rope, landing on the lowest knot Steve had formed that first day he’d climbed out of the tunnels.

Steve ran forward to just past the rope and unleashed a second blast of fire down the tunnel. With Billy behind him now, he could _finally_ test the flamethrower to its fullest range. Unlike the guns, the trigger on this was variable He pulled the trigger back to its furthest range.

The fire must have shot forward ten feet, catching all four oncoming Demodogs. They fell to the floor, screeching in agony, writhing in the fire –

A pained whimper behind him caused him to stop, tearing his attention to the man behind him. Billy was still on the ground, eyes closed back, mouth open in a broken, silent scream.

“Billy, for fuck’s sake, _get out of here!_” Steve screamed.

Billy shook his head against the rope, eyes still closed. “I can’t,” he whimpered.

Steve took a step back, putting a hand under his arm. “Yes, you _can!_”

Steve hauled Billy to his feet, doing his best to ignore the cry of agony as Billy struggled to stand.

“Hand over hand,” Steve instructed. “I’ll push you the rest of the way.”

A screech from towards the Hub pulled Steve’s attention back towards the oncoming threat. Shadows danced at the bend. He turned and glanced back at the Demodogs he’d just fired upon – they were still screaming, the last of the fire burning out, but they were starting to recover. One was getting close to finding its feet again…

“_GO!_” Steve screamed.

He didn’t look properly to see if Billy followed his instructions. He stepped away from the rope to send another blast of fire back down towards the Demodogs that were just recovering. An otherworldly scream tore his attention back behind him and Steve spun around to see an oncoming pack – as many as he’d seen the first time he’d been in these tunnels – more, even…

He sent a jet of flame down towards them. Firing indiscriminately, he waved it across the ground, doing his level best to create a wall of fire.

He stepped back towards the rope, relieved to find Billy most of the way out. He put a hand under Billy’s good foot and gave him a final boost out of the tunnels. Billy managed to finally pull himself out, leaving the rope clear for Steve.

Steve grabbed the rope and hauled himself up. It took him a few seconds – again, the familiarity of having done several excursions proved extremely useful, as he could hear the Demodogs finally recovering.

He hauled himself out of the hole, lying flat on his stomach as he crawled out to come up beside Billy.

“Make for the trees,” Steve ordered. “If we can get into the forest, we might make it.”

Billy didn’t manage a verbal response – he only nodded silently, breathing hard, bracing himself as he hauled himself to his feet. Steve heard him let out a cry of pain as he put weight onto it, but a glance in Billy’s direction showed him that Billy was still upright.

Just.

It had to be enough.

A huge, clawed paw emerged from the hole as Billy took his first few steps. Steve staggered to his feet and towards the outside of the hole just as a second paw followed and a head emerged. The head looked in his general direction before opening out like a terrifying, fanged flower. Steve caught a glimpse of red shining on its many teeth – this was the thing that had taken down Billy.

Steve pulled the trigger.

The full force of a military-grade flamethrower was unleashed upon the hole, catching everything in the general vicinity. A cacophony of pained screams from inside the hole grated against Steve’s ears as the roar of the fire echoed around the field. He could see the fire catching against the grass around as he took a few steps away, waving the barrel of the flamethrower around and catching as much of the grass as possible, _praying _that the fire would take –

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sight that made his stomach clench.

He saw Billy fall to the ground, landing heavily on his knees about ten feet from the treeline. Steve released the trigger, praying that what he’d done was enough, before sprinting over to where Billy was crouched.

Steve pulled Billy upright and started to half carry, half drag him towards the trees. He cast a glance back over his shoulder to look at the hole. He could see a small amount of fire still burning around the hole – it wouldn’t keep the Demodogs at bay for long, but if they were lucky, it would give them just enough time to get away.

They made it just under the trees before Billy gave a groan and collapsed against Steve.

“Billy!” Steve cried, doing his best to catch him.

Steve crouched down beside Billy and pulled him against his shoulder. Billy was gasping into his neck, breathing hard.

“Billy, we’re going to go back home,” Steve whispered into his ear. “It’ll be okay, we’ll get back home, and we’ll sort something out. We’ll be safe there. We’ll go the short way. It won’t be long. Do you think you can hold on for that long? Then you can rest, I _promise._ Can you do that for me?”

Billy didn’t answer immediately, before finally nodding into Steve’s shoulder. Steve let out a sigh of relief, before pulling one of Billy’s arms around his shoulder and tucking one of his own under Billy’s other shoulder.

“Come on,” Steve said as he started to practically carry Billy upright. “Let’s go home.”

-:-

It was early evening when Linda found herself walking up the dirt driveway.

She’d never been here before – it was secluded in an area of Hawkins she didn’t tend to go to very much. It was mostly residential, and she didn’t know many people here. The few people she _did _know tended to be more acquaintances rather than actual friends.

These people, however, were strangers to her. She’d never met them in her life. She’d seen them, briefly, at Steven’s funeral, but they hadn’t made it to the wake, and she hadn’t spoken to them at the service.

Still, by all accounts, Steven had known them. Steven had even been close to them. Hopefully that would be enough that they wouldn’t turn her away.

She knocked softly on the door, and a few seconds later, Joyce Byers opened it, looking surprised at her presence.

“Hi,” Joyce said, eyeing Linda, clearly very confused.

“Mrs Byers,” Linda said in a strangely formal tone. “I’m Linda Harrington, I’m-”

“Steve’s mom, yes,” Joyce said, finally catching on. “Hi – uh – please, come in.”

Joyce gestured inside towards the couch.

“I’m sorry, it’s a bit of a mess, I wasn’t expecting company,” Joyce said. “My kids are out tonight, there’s a game night or something at the Wheelers’ house, and Jonathan took Will over. I think I’m expected to pick Will up after the game.”

Joyce gave a small laugh. Linda smiled awkwardly, not quite sure what to make of it. She stood in the centre of the living room, clutching her bag tight.

“What can I do for you, Mrs Harrington?” Joyce asked.

“I…” Linda trailed off, taking in the room around her. It was so unlike her room at home, messy, cluttered…

_Homely._

“I actually wanted to talk to you about something,” Linda finally found some confidence. “I wanted to talk to you about when your son went missing.”

Joyce closed her eyes for a second longer than a standard blink. “I’m really sorry, Mrs Harrington, it’s quite a difficult subject-”

“I understand that,” Linda pressed. “Normally I wouldn’t ask, but… you’re the only person I can really talk to about this. Everyone else thinks I’m crazy, or grieving, or in _denial_ or something.”

That had Joyce confused. “What do you mean?”

“I assume you know my son was killed in the Starcourt Tragedy,” Linda explained. “I think I actually saw you at his funeral.”

Joyce nodded, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

“Well,” Linda said. “I don’t think he’s really gone.”

Joyce felt herself stand up a little straighter in surprise. “Mrs Harrington, that’s-”

“Insane, I know,” Linda waved a hand dismissively. “You wouldn’t be the first to say it. But when your son went missing, _you_ didn’t believe it, either. Even though you had a body, even though you buried him, you _still _didn’t believe it. And you were right.”

“That’s different-” Joyce began.

“How?”

“I…” Joyce trailed off. “It wasn’t the same. My son was _missing, _not dead.”

“He _was_ dead. You identified the body. His brother identified the body. He was unrecognisable, just like Steven was.”

Joyce pressed her lips together, a crease appearing between her eyebrows.

“Do you _know_ what they showed us?” Linda explained. “They showed my husband and me a _skeleton._ That was it. Everything about him was burnt off. The man there, someone from the Department of Energy, he said that the only way to identify him was through dental records. They weren’t even _trying_ to pretend it was possible for us to identify him. So why, if _your_ son came back, is it so impossible for mine to do the same?”

Joyce breathed out heavily. “Because…” she began. “Nobody actually _saw_ what happened to Will. Everyone just _assumed._ People saw what happened to Steve.”

“Really?” Linda asked incredulously. “Like _who, _exactly?”

Joyce closed her eyes, trying to resist the oncoming tears. “Like me,” she confessed.

Everything about Linda’s demeanour changed in a heartbeat. Where previously she’d been eager, almost hostile, she was now shocked, speechless, stunned into silence.

“W-what?” she finally managed. “You were _there?_”

Joyce nodded. “Steve helped a lot of people,” she said. It wasn’t a lie, not completely. She just needed to adapt the truth to suit the official story. She’d gotten good at that. “He didn’t make it out, though, before everything… collapsed. I… I saw it all happen.”

Linda found herself falling back into the couch, eyes wide. She couldn’t quite process what was being said.

“Is there any chance…” Linda asked, her voice hollow, “that you were mistaken?”

Joyce came and sat down beside Linda on the couch, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She looked into those big brown eyes that stared at her, wide open, pleading for her not to extinguish that little spark of hope. Joyce swallowed as she shook her head.

The fire that had been so alive moments ago suddenly guttered in the back of her eyes and Joyce watched as Linda’s hope finally died. Linda, however, didn’t lose it like she had done at the Hollands. She closed her eyes, finally finding that self-control once more, that discipline that she was so used to employing from decades of playing the lawyer. A moment later, she opened them, and it was like a wall had gone up in the blacks of her pupils. Cold. Hardened.

“Thank you for your time,” Linda managed to say, her voice raspy. She stood up and walked across the room, before opening the door and staring out into the evening light.

“Mrs Harrington,” Joyce called. “If you ever need to talk… please. You know where I am.”

Linda paused as she looked out the door, refusing to look back at Joyce. Her head twisted slightly, an involuntary movement, but she didn’t look back. She _couldn’t _look back at her.

“Thank you,” she said.

And she walked out, closing the door with a small click behind her.

-:-

“_Ah_ – Careful!”

“Sorry.”

“You’ve done that about four times!”

“Well, if you didn’t keep _moving…_”

Steve had managed to drag Billy to the Byers’ place. It wasn’t exactly _far_ from his own house, but Steve had found two main reasons for not going straight back to his place. Firstly, Billy had been bleeding all over the place, and, given that he knew Demodogs hunted the scent of blood, he wasn’t exactly about to create a trail leading all the way back to where he would ideally like to stay indefinitely.

The second reason was that he flatly refused to carry Billy any further.

The adrenaline that had seen him through the tunnels had worn off, and pains that he probably _should_ have found himself feeling while he’d been running around and climbing up ropes and dragging the not-insignificant weight of a muscular man were starting to make themselves known once again. The burning in his chest had returned, his hand was feeling stiff, and his entire side was now aching. So when he’d seen the dim outline of a house, he hadn’t really cared whose house it was, he just tried to duck inside the back door.

Billy now sat on the couch with his leg propped up on the coffee table. Steve was trying to bandage it as best he could. He was currently using his shirt to try and stop the bleeding – it wasn’t ideal, but if he could stop the blood and wrap it up in _something_ for now, then he could get Billy home without leaving a trail _too_ obvious for the Demodogs to follow, where he could clean it properly using the large tub of clean water they’d prepared that morning.

Steve released some of the pressure on Billy’s ankle and lifted the bright blue cloth to check on the wound. He was relieved when blood didn’t immediately start gushing out at the removal of the pressure.

“The good news is,” Steve said, pulling away the rest of the cloth, “I think the worst of the bleeding’s stopped. I’ll wrap it up until we get home and then I’ll clean it properly.”

Billy gave a grunt to show he’d understood. Steve peered down at the wound, trying to see the best place to lift his ankle.

“Huh,” he said softly. “I thought I caught you with the flamethrower.”

Billy looked at him, confused. “Did you _not?_”

“Don’t think so,” Steve said, looking around his ankle. “There don’t seem to be any burns.”

“Oh,” Billy said dismissively. “Maybe it was just the heat of it, then. That shit burns hot, I could feel it all down my back, and you were aiming it _right_ by my ankle.”

Steve nodded his concession – he’d felt the handle of the weapon grow hot in his hands. “Maybe it’s just been covered in blood or something, I’ll have a proper look when we get it cleaned up.”

Billy shrugged. “Whatever makes you happy, Stevie.”

Steve raised an eyebrow as a smirk spread across his face. “From the way you were screaming, you’d have thought I’d incinerated your leg.”

“Yeah, well,” Billy hit back grumpily. “Maybe it’s not that bad. I was always told that first degree burns were the most painful, even though they haven’t caused the most damage.”

Steve looked at him curiously.

“I had to take a first aid course for the lifeguard job at the pool,” Billy explained. “It’s a formality. I did was a lifeguard at a beach last summer in California too, they always make you take their special training course.”

“Fun.”

“No, it _really_ isn’t,” Billy said. “It’s so stupid, I’ve been doing first aid courses for as long as I’ve been surfing. I come to this back end of nowhere and I’m getting taught a load of shit by some moron who’s never even _seen _someone struggle in the water, and I’m sat there correcting half the shit he’s telling us because what he’s saying is all complete bullshit. Some of it was actually really fucking _dangerous._”

“Bet your instructor _loved_ that.”

“I mean it,” Billy said. “He was saying that if someone’s struggling, jump in after them and help them out. You don’t _ever _do that in the water. If someone’s struggling in the water, chances are they’re panicking. You ever tried to get a flailing kid out of a pool?”

“I’ve tried to get one out of a _hole_ before,” Steve muttered under his breath.

“Well if they’re _panicking_, and you come along in the water and try to help them, they could start grabbing you, pushing you under, and if you hit your head or something, you’re screwed, and _they’re_ screwed. So when this idiot came along and starts telling us to jump into the pool to help a kid, I just turned around and told him where to shove it.”

“Of course you did,” Steve sighed. “Hold still.”

“What-”

Steve finally lifted up Billy’s leg as the man let out a groan of agony at the sudden movement. Steve slipped his shirt underneath his ankle and did his best to lay it back down on the table as gently as he could.

Which was evidently not gently enough for Billy.

“_Ah – you motherfucking-_”

“Think about something else,” Steve said over the sounds of Billy’s continued cursing.

“_Shit – Fuck you, you son of a-_”

“Were there any _good_ parts about being a lifeguard?” Steve asked distractedly as he started to wrap the cloth around Billy’s ankle.

Billy evidently had just enough in him to hear the logic Steve was offering. “Sure,” he grunted. “The uniform was pretty good – _JESUS, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?_”

Steve tied the shirt up as tightly as he could, ignoring Billy’s continued swearing.

“_Steve, be a bit more fucking heavy handed, could you? You fucking-_”

“So the uniform,” Steve continued. “Let me guess – Speedos?”

“Not exactly,” Billy growled. “Shorts. No top. Like you right now, only less pale.”

Steve gave Billy a glare with no real heat behind it. If he hadn’t been feeling self-conscious a second before about wandering around the Upside Down with no top on with Billy Hargrove, he was now.

“Bet the girls _loved_ that.”

“You bet,” Billy managed a smirk – a shadow of the cocky grin Steve was so used to seeing on him. “Girls, some of the older ladies – had a group of moms who’d always come for the show. Hell, even some of the men were interested.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “That didn’t freak you out or anything?”

“Not really,” Billy shrugged. “It’s mostly just interesting. There were a few guys out in California, but in a town like this, _nobody_ who’s like that is admitting it. So it’s fun to see who’s interested.”

Steve managed a smile. “Anyone I know?”

Billy shrugged. “Probably. There are a few guys from school who are _definitely_ gay. Not sure if you’d have come across them though, they tend to be more drama freaks and stuff.”

“Or band geeks,” Steve added.

“Oh, _hell_ yeah,” Billy said. “But they’re not the fun ones to find. Nah, it’s the really straight laced ones who are fun to watch staring.”

Steve smiled as he looked down at Billy’s ankle, admiring his handiwork. It wasn’t exactly about to put a doctor out of business, and even _he_ thought he’d be able to do better, once he was home –

“If I’m honest, I kind of thought _you_ were gay for a while,” Billy said.

_Wait._

_Hold on._

_…What?_

Steve looked at Billy, shock etched all over his face.

“Yeah,” Billy shrugged, like it was the most casual thing in the world. “All that really fucking obvious painful overcompensation for everything, _desperately_ trying to pretend to be someone you obviously weren’t happy with, not to mention your obsession with your hair, I thought I had you pegged as a gay.”

Steve suddenly felt extremely defensive.

“But no, you weren’t gay, you were just _whipped_,” Billy said, casually throwing away the remark. “Whipped… Boring… Just your average confused jock who’s not quite sure who they want to be when they grow up, pretending to be the cool kid, trying to convince yourself that _that’s _who you are.”

Steve felt astonishingly uncomfortable about where this conversation was going. He didn’t look Billy in the eyes – it was like he didn’t want Billy to do a -

“But _this…_” Billy continued, his voice taking on a much more intrigued tone. “That guy who got us out tonight… _That’s _the real you, isn’t it? _That’s _who King Steve _really _is.”

Steve finally looked Billy in the eyes to see those bright blue depths sparkling at him, staring at him, absolutely fascinated.

“I was wondering how a guy like _you_ managed to survive for so long. Hell, how a guy like you managed to _deal_ with all this shit, even back home. I didn’t think you had it in you. But what I saw there… the guy in the tunnels… that was something else.”

Steve managed an uncomfortable smile.

“I’ll admit,” a triumphant smile broke across Billy’s face as he held out his hands in a conceding gesture. “I underestimated you, Steve. We wouldn’t have made it out of that tunnel if it hadn’t been for you. I won’t make that same mistake again.”

Steve gave a small, tense shrug. “Yeah, well… you’re welcome, I guess.”

He looked down at Billy’s leg.

“That’s probably the best I’m going to get it here,” Steve announced, desperate to change the subject. “It’s not exactly perfect, but it’ll get you home. We probably shouldn’t hang around here too long, so we should probably go.”

Billy shrugged, that smile still staying put. Steve offered out a hand, refusing to meet Billy’s eyes as Billy took it, using it to haul himself to his feet. He hovered, putting his weight on his good foot, before gingerly touching his injured foot onto the ground. He gently tested the weight on it, using Steve for balance.

“Yeah, it’ll probably do,” Billy said. “It’s not _that_ far. Then you can actually _listen _to me.”

“Sure,” Steve said, not really listening to Billy. He was thinking over the conversation in his mind.

So Billy had thought he was _gay._ That made some of Billy’s interactions at their earlier meetings make sense – and also _so much more confusing. _That crap he’d been saying about Steve just _pretending _was almost spot on – it was exactly how he’d found himself thinking back on his early high school years – hell, it was what had pushed Nancy away. The only way he’d coped with _anything _in his life was to shove it down, pretend that everything was normal. That had been how he’d tried to help Nancy, and it had backfired. It wasn’t what she’d needed.

It hadn’t been what _he’d _needed, either.

Billy had evidently picked up on that. He had said something very similar to Steve in one of their first conversations that they’d had in the Upside Down. He found himself thinking on that conversation, replaying it in his mind, words of his most recent conversation swirling around in his head, fusing together.

_“I’ll be honest, I thought you’d know a bit about it. Typical rich kid with parents who are never around, trying to be popular because that’s all that fucking matters, isn’t it? Playing up to it. Pretending.”_

_“All that really fucking obvious painful overcompensation for everything, desperately trying to pretend to be someone you obviously weren’t happy with…”_

_“That’s why I was so interested in you when I heard all about you.”_

_“Thought we were similar-”_

Shit.

No way.

Holy fucking shit.

Steve stopped in his tracks.

“Billy…” Steve said, the revelation making him see the man in a whole new light. But he had no idea what to say next.

Billy looked at Steve curiously, as though Steve wasn’t staring at him like he’d grown another set of arms and legs. Steve’s mouth moved slightly, but the words weren’t quite there yet as he struggled to figure out how to ask it.

“You’re not… you’re not, are you? … _Are you…?_”

“There we go,” Billy said, letting out a resigned sigh.

“You’re _gay?_”

Billy gave him a small smile. “Wasn’t exactly hiding it from you anymore, Steve.”

Steve’s jaw dropped even further. “_No way…_” he finally managed. “No fucking way, you’ve been with more girls than _I _have…”

“Yeah, well…” Billy shrugged. “You know what I was saying about overcompensating?”

Steve found himself taking a step back from him. “Shit,” Steve said, absolutely floored by the revelation. “Holy _shit._”

Billy gave him a shrug. “You got a _problem _with me being gay?”

Steve found himself shaking his head. “No, no… there’s no problem… It’s just…”

“A shock?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathed. “And… you know… I’m… I’m not.”

“I know,” Billy said simply.

“Yeah, well… great…”

Billy gave a small, incredulous chuckle. “Steve, I’m not about to try and sleep with you _just_ because I’m gay,” he said. “I have this thing called _self-control._”

“No, I…” Steve stammered, taken aback. “I… I didn’t think you were, I just… I can’t believe it.”

“I got that,” Billy said, rolling his eyes. “But if you could put your shock on hold for the next half hour, you weren’t wrong when you said we needed to go.”

“Oh – right – yeah – sorry…”

Steve slid his arm under Billy’s arm, letting him put an arm around his shoulder. They managed to make it to the door, Billy hobbling out, before Steve’s curiosity finally got the better of him.

“One question, though.”

Billy gave an exasperated huff. “Yeah?”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Well, Steve,” Billy said in that same slightly exasperated tone. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re kind of the last man on Earth.”

-:-

Linda had been walking for hours.

The sky had darkened to an inky black, the cloudless sky showing off its canopy of stars as best they could above the bright streetlights. A gentle breeze was wafting through Hawkins, taking the edge off the heatwave.

It was a nice night. Just like the previous evening, and the evening before, and the evening before that, and all the other evenings that had happened since the fourth of July. She would have loved to spend a night like this wandering around the town under normal circumstances.

There wasn’t _normal_ anymore.

Joyce Byers had seen it happen_._ She’d been _there_, with Linda’s son, while she and Paul had been enjoying fireworks in another state_._ While Linda and Paul had been enjoying the lavish display from their comfortable office, Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper and who _knew_ how many others had been escaping from a fire of their own, courtesy of the sacrifice of Linda’s only son.

A sacrifice that had taken Steven away from them all.

He was gone, she believed that now. Joyce Byers had no reason to lie, and, from the albeit little that Linda knew about her, she wouldn’t lie about things like this. Linda believed her – if anyone would have encouraged her to hold onto hope, it would have been Joyce Byers, the woman who’d had her own dead son returned to her alive. Linda believed her in a way she hadn’t believed Chief Hopper, or Paul, or the Hollands, or any one of the hundreds of other people who’d been telling her that he was gone.

She’d been surprised to discover that the final acceptance had given her some of her strength back.

She’d never been a particularly emotional person – she was _extraordinarily_ good at compartmentalising. Her life was one of walls being put up, keeping everything in nice, tidy, ordered boxes to be dealt with at convenient times. There had been a few notable exceptions, times when the walls came crumbling down as her world was rocked.

Straight after Steven had been born, she’d found herself struggling to come to terms with her new life, trying to give everything the tiny child in her care needed, but found herself getting upset, even angry, when she couldn’t, when the child was demanding _everything_ from her. It demanded _all of her_, and she felt guilty when she discovered that there were things she didn’t _want_ to give. She’d kept that to herself, not telling Paul, not telling _anyone,_ when there were days, after Paul had gone back to work, where she’d hear that baby crying, and just _left_ it, like a phone she didn’t want to answer. She’d eventually worked out on her own a balance that worked for her, what she _could_ give, what she could hold back for herself. She’d never confided in Paul about this – she didn’t want to hear his judgement, his condemnation that she was _sure_ was coming. So she worked it out on her own. She hadn’t known any other parents who felt like that. Nobody ever _talked_ about the days when they’d wished they weren’t a mother.

The second earthquake that had knocked down those carefully curated compartments of emotion had been the discovery of Paul’s affair. Well, _affairs._ It had been a throwaway remark by a couple of partners at an office party nearly ten years before in a conversation that had evidently been intended to go over her head. It probably would have done, if she hadn’t met the paralegal in question earlier that evening, and had been wondering why the girl who was half her age was looking so uncomfortable around her. The night could have been the end of their marriage – she’d _thought_ that divorce was how these things went. It was _expected._ She’d taken some time to herself after everything clicked into place, shutting herself in a supply cupboard away from the party for almost an hour, thinking… and realising that she was _terrified_ of divorce. She didn’t _want_ to leave Paul. Steven had been nine at the time, at home with a babysitter, _thank god,_ and Linda realised that she needed to find a way to make it work. That knowledge that she _wasn’t_ going to leave Paul immediately had given her a feeling of power – there needed to be repentance, certainly, and the affair needed to end – but she could ask for her own autonomy. When she ultimately confronted Paul after they got home, her emotions were once again sorted into those neat little boxes. Paul was caught on the back foot when she confronted him. Predictably, he was bending over backwards trying to appease her. She demanded the affair end, and he offered her a position at the law firm. It was entirely a formality, but it gave Linda her own source of income, her own financial autonomy, a role that _didn’t _rely on Paul’s wealth to support her if she ever _did_ decide to leave.

Neither of those incidents, however, could hold a candle to how her world had come crashing down at the death of Steven.

For too long, her emotions had been out of check. For weeks now, she’d been drifting, clinging desperately to one fantasy or another, allowing her dreams to rule her days and her nightmares to rule her nights. The horror of it all was something she’d never even _considered_ trying to comprehend before, and her imagination struggled to cope with these new demands upon her reality. She’d dared to dream that Steven was still alive, she’d tortured herself with the potential horrors of his demise… but now, Joyce Byers had given her something she’d never considered wanting before.

Reality had finally been brought in check.

Her feet found themselves taking her to Melvald’s. They were open late – they often were on a Friday – and Linda found herself looking at a display of flowers by the entrance. She passed over the lilies, she’d never liked them anyway, but looked at the gerberas. They were a bunch of yellow, orange and pink flowers, bright against the otherwise cold fluorescent light.

She lifted them out of the display and walked towards the door. A kid who couldn’t have been older than sixteen was at the till as she put down a twenty on the counter. He looked slightly confused at the wordless interaction, vaguely processing the transaction as he watched her breeze out of the shop purposefully. He mentioned something about her change, but it didn’t matter to Linda.

She was on her way to the church.

She hadn’t been back since the funeral. It all felt too heavy, too… _unreal._ She’d never liked graveyards, particularly at night, wandering through the rows and rows of headstones, each a heavy reminder of the dead beneath her feet.

Tonight, however, she felt more like _she _was the ghost.

She finally found the cold marble headstone that marked the grave of her son. She felt strange, lying the flowers down in front of the words spelling out his name. There wasn’t a pot or a vase or anything, so she just ended up leaning them upright against the stone.

Now that she was here, though, she didn’t know what to say.

“Hey, Steven,” she eventually began. It didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel _natural_ to be talking to a lump of marble as though it was her boy. Memories started to flash through her mind – _Steven’s first attempt at riding a bike in their garden – dropping him off at his first day of school – his face lighting up when he made the middle school basketball team – his pride after winning his first game that Linda had come to…_

Those moments had become fewer and fewer over the years, as both Linda and Paul had become more and more busy with work, and more reliant on Steven to look after himself. She still remembered, though, the pride shining in his face when he’d told them he’d been made captain of the high school basketball team – one of the youngest captains in the history of the school.

Now that he was gone, Linda wished she’d been around for more moments like that.

“I’m… I’m sorry I haven’t visited you before now,” she began. “I… I didn’t want you to be gone. I was so busy trying to _prove_ that you weren’t… So I didn’t come and see you. I couldn’t come and see you.”

She sighed.

“But what’s new there?” she laughed bitterly. “There were… there were _so many things_ I missed out on with you that I was just too busy to do… So many things where I was trying to do what I thought was best for _you,_ or for _us,_ or maybe it was just for me, I don’t know…”

She reached out and found her fingertips brushing the carved name. The only indication she had of the tears on her face was how the wind bit at the damp skin on her face.

“I didn’t know a lot of things,” Linda breathed. “I didn’t know what I was missing out on with you for a long time. I didn’t know you were gone. I didn’t know how to _deal_ with you being gone. I _still_ don’t. Everyone keeps telling me to _talk_ to someone – Marsha Holland recommended a therapist, but… I don’t want to talk to a _stranger_ about this. There’s nobody I want to talk to about this anymore except _you._ There was… there’s so much I wish I could tell you, Steven. So much I _wish_ I’d found the chance to say.”

She looked around the empty graveyard, feeling extremely grateful that there was nobody around to see her.

“Your father left, you know,” she told the headstone. “He didn’t want to listen to me go crazy. It’s funny… I was going round, telling everyone I thought you were still alive, asking anyone who would listen if they thought I wasn’t being crazy, and _everyone_ said I was going mad. But it made so much _sense_ to me… I even spoke to _Joyce Byers –_ I don’t know if you were still close to Jonathan, you still kept that picture he took, so maybe – but even _she_ said I was wrong. But here I am, sitting in this fucking _graveyard_ in the middle of the night, talking to a fucking _rock _like it’s the most normal thing in the world, and… it feels crazier to be talking to your grave like it’s really _you_ here than it _ever_ felt to believe that you were still here-”

“Linda?”

The voice took her completely by surprise. She broke off suddenly, turning her head quickly to find herself looking at the last person she wanted to see.

“Paul?” she asked. “What are _you_ doing here?”

Paul looked at her, looked at the flowers, before holding up a bunch of lilies that she hadn’t noticed in his hand.

“Much the same thing as you, I think,” he explained. “Visiting Steven.”

Linda straightened up, her posture guarded. “I thought you’d left,” she said, trying to keep the accusatory note out of her voice.

Judging by the way that Paul’s posture changed slightly, shifting ever so slightly onto his back foot, she didn’t quite manage it.

“I know,” he said. “I – uh… I came back.”

He tried for a smile which Linda didn’t return.

“Why?” she asked, not bothering to keep emotion out of her voice.

“I saw the news,” Paul explained.

A flash of a curious frown creased her eyebrows for a second before she managed to straighten out her expression. “What news?” she asked coldly.

Paul’s eyes widened in shock. “Didn’t you see? Larry was arrested.”

_That wasn’t what she was expecting._

The coldness vanished from her demeanour as shock took over. “Larry? As in Larry _Kline?_”

“Yes,” Paul said. “Apparently he took bribes to cover up safety violations in Starcourt.”

“_What?_”

“I know.”

Linda opened her mouth, trying to form words as she took a step back, holding the top of Steven’s headstone for balance. Paul took a couple of steps towards her, putting a hand on her arm before she shook it away.

“Linda,” he said softly, as he tried again to touch her arm. This time, however, she didn’t flinch. “Believe me. _I know._”

“I can’t _believe _it…” Linda gasped. “_Larry…_ He… But – _Steven…_ And Tom and Janet… They were all…”

Her voice trailed off as Paul placed a second hand on her other shoulder gently. “I know,” he said softly. “Linda, I’m _so sorry_ I left, I… I was upset… I couldn’t take it… I thought if I could just run away, it’d all be okay, but… Linda, I’m so, _so_ sorry. I want to make this right. I want to make this right for you. For them. For _Steven._”

“How?” Linda asked. She knew that tone of voice – she could tell that Paul had a plan.

“Well,” he explained. “I called up the DA’s office, but they won’t let us take the case because we’re a private firm. But then I started thinking… There’s been so much wrong with this town recently. The Starcourt Tragedy was the most significant thing, but you were right, there’s definitely something else going on. That Holland girl, the Radio Shack employee, Benny who ran the diner… Hell, even that Byers kid who got lost in the woods. Starcourt wasn’t _new_ – this town wasn’t safe beforehand, and Larry _knew_ it. But he didn’t do anything, because he was just after the money. But Kline is _gone_ now. And this town _needs_ someone who’s prepared to do whatever it takes to keep something like this from _ever_ happening again.”

“Paul…” Linda looked at him, half shocked, half horrified.

“Linda,” he said earnestly. “I want to run for Mayor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I did say it was going to be a crucial chapter...
> 
> Merry Christmas everyone! I'm afraid I'm away for a few days over New Year so probably won't have very much time to write so if it takes me a while to update, it's not because I've vanished off the face of the Earth. Hopefully an interesting chapter makes up for it.


	17. Part 2 Chapter 10: Adults Don't Get Summer Holidays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for homophobic slurs and general coming to terms with sexuality plus some secondhand descriptions of domestic violence.

_Billy was gay._

The revelation was pinging around his head like a pinball machine. Everything made so much more _sense…_ But the fundamental shift from the womanizing star basketball player he’d always seen Billy as to the closet homosexual man Steve was now stuck in Hell with was taking a certain amount of effort to wrap his head around.

Actually, that wasn’t _quite_ Steve’s problem. _This_ Billy he had no trouble believing was gay. It was reconciling the Billy that Steve had come to know and accept with the Billy that Steve had been so wary of for months before – the Billy that had taken his future from him – and realising that Billy _hadn’t_ changed that much. This was _always_ who Billy had been. There had just been this _front_, this _mask._ It wasn’t that Billy had always been gay that was the problem.

The problem was that Billy had always been _human._

They made it back to Steve’s house far more quickly than they’d made it as far as the Byers’ place. Billy, now moderately confident in the art of hobbling, had made his own way straight for the couch where he promptly collapsed and eased up his leg onto the coffee table.

“Steve, do you want your shirt back?” he asked, gesturing at his leg, still wrapped in the blue fabric.

Steve looked at him, confused for a second, before remembering what Billy was talking about.

“Uh – maybe later,” Steve shrugged. “You probably need it more right now.”

“You sure about that?” Billy gave him a strange look. “I felt you shivering all the way home.”

“Yeah – well – it’s cold,” Steve pointed out. “And honestly, a polyester t-shirt isn’t going to make me feel a whole lot warmer.”

“Suit yourself,” Billy shrugged. “Though it does show off your chest in possibly its worst state.”

The mention of his broken ribs sent a reminder to his brain of the throbbing in his chest. For the most part, he’d gotten used to the burning, spiking sensation that was now constantly sitting there, provided he didn’t breathe too sharply, or force himself into any overexerting physical activities, or – god forbid – _knock it_, but it was getting more insistent, and far, _far_ harder to ignore.

He hadn’t actually looked at himself in the mirror for a while. He suspected he would be shocked by the sight. The closest thing to a gauge he had for what he might look like was Billy. Billy, with his normally well-styled hair matted down and tangled, with dirt and grime from weeks without a shower or a bath forming at least one dreadlock at the back. Steve had found himself being trained out of his habit of running a hand through his own hair at the increasingly greasy feeling he’d encountered in his first few days in the Upside Down.

It wasn’t just Billy’s hair that was showing signs. His face was thinner, too – lack of food was evidently having that effect. Steve imagined that _he_ would probably have similar hollows in his own cheeks. He’d gotten used to the constant pang in his stomach – he and Billy had collectively decided to ration out their cans to one can between them per day on the understanding that they didn’t know how long they’d need to make it last.

Billy, however, was compensating for the thin look of his face with the beard that was starting to grow. Where previously, he’d had a carefully curated smattering of facial hair, it had now grown into the beginnings of a full beard. Steve had never managed to grow a beard himself – he usually got a few thin wisps of hair above his lip and a couple of sparse patches where two or three hairs would grow out of the bottom of his chin and on the far left side of his jawline, but he’d never kept them around long enough to grow properly.

What he had _no_ gauge of telling from Billy, however, was the state of his chest.

It had been a surprise when Steve had taken off his shirt to catch a glimpse of his ribcage to see huge bruises blossoming near the top. Now, at the relative safety of his house, he finally gave himself a chance to look.

The lower ribs, untouched by psychotic Russians with drills, were more prominent against his torso than Steve ever remembered seeing them. The way his stomach caved in below the bottom of his ribcage was… alarming, to say the least. But that was nothing compared to the mess that was the top of his chest.

The Russians had broken the top two ribs on each side of his chest. Large purple bruises had blossomed outwards from the four holes below his collarbone. There were still old bloodstains that he hadn’t washed off from when he’d been tortured in that basement. Beneath the blood and the bruises, Steve could see swelling underneath his skin. He had no idea what his bones looked like underneath.

No wonder breathing was getting harder.

“Well,” Steve tried to shrug it off. “It’s not like there’s a hospital here or anything.”

Billy raised a single eyebrow at Steve’s comment, but thankfully had enough in him not to say anything as Steve went into the kitchen. He got a little pot out of one of the cupboards and decanted some of their clean water into it. He went back over to Billy and settled himself down beside Billy’s injured leg before gently unwrapping the shirt from around it before dunking it into the cold water with only minimal complaining from Billy.

“So how long have you known?” Steve asked.

“Known what?” Billy asked through gritted teeth at the sudden release of pressure around his leg.

“That you were gay?”

Steve gently pressed the wet cloth against Billy’s injury, brushing it down gently over his ankle. Billy let out a hiss of pain, but managed to resist the urge to curse Steve to oblivion that Steve was sure was reflexive at this point.

“A few years,” Billy grunted out. “There was this guy in high school when I was a freshman. He was a junior. Went to a house party. By that point I’d kissed a few girls, but never felt any spark. Hadn’t really _been_ with anyone. Got drunk, tried marijuana for the first time, decisions were made and I woke up the next morning in his bed.”

“You _slept _with him?” Steve asked, incredulous.

“No – _God, _no, it wasn’t that fast. I just ended up kissing him until we fell asleep together. But…”

A smile drifted across his face, wistful, a light appearing in his eyes at a memory, making his face almost _glow_ in the darkness in a way Steve had never seen before.

“The way he _touched_ me, Steve…” Billy murmured. “The way his hands felt, when he just _held_ me… when he touched my hair, or my cheek… I still remember it, Steve. I’ve _never_ felt like that with a chick. It was… I can’t describe it, Steve. Not unless you’ve felt it too.”

Steve didn’t meet his eyes as he gently wiped away the dried blood before putting the shirt back in the water. He was pretty sure he _had_ felt it. He remembered his first time with Nancy – the way his heart had raced at the sight of her saying his name, _trusting_ him to turn around. He remembered how completely inarticulate he’d become, barely managing to breathe out the word _‘wow’._ Even though there had been _so much_ that had gone wrong that night, from Jonathan to Barb to Tommy and Carol, he still cradled that memory of his first time with her as something golden. Untouched by the chaos that had occurred outside his room. It had been that night, when everything had felt so _right_ to him in those moments, that he’d realised that Nancy was a girl that one day, if the stars aligned, he could finally, _finally_ love.

At least, until she’d realised that she couldn’t love him back.

“I think I know what you mean,” Steve murmured. “So what happened?”

The glow on Billy’s face was extinguished. “My dad found out.”

Steve looked up at Billy, pausing his attempts to rinse out his top.

“Yeah,” Billy let out a breath. “Went down _really well_, that did. Lots of yelling. Lots of fighting. Lots of _‘I didn’t think you were actually a fucking faggot’_ and threats of _straightening me out._”

Billy passed a hand over his face, his eyes closed. It occurred to Steve that he’d never _seen_ Billy so raw, so _exposed._ Steve felt uncomfortable, as though he was intruding on something very private, like someone who was always so _guarded_ with his emotions was now standing there naked.

“It was the night my mom left.”

Steve couldn’t help himself, he was staring at Billy. The top lay forgotten in the pot of water, floating around the liquid that had been stained a murky red.

“She tried to get involved,” Billy explained. “She tried to stop him. My dad – he’d threatened to hit me before, but that night, he – he was actually getting violent. Smacked me across the face. It was the first time he’d done _that_ as well.”

Billy laughed bitterly, a sarcastic sound. Steve was frozen in shock, his mind in overdrive. He’d had no idea that Billy’s dad was violent. Max had never mentioned it – did Max _know?_

“So when my mom got involved, my dad smacked _her_ across the face, too. Started going at her hard – as hard as I went on _you,_ Stevie. But she didn’t lie there and take it. She grabbed a fucking… a fucking _ashtray _or something. Hit him round the head with it. Didn’t knock him out, just made him mad. But…”

He shrugged. Steve didn’t even realise he was holding his breath.

“It was enough,” Billy continued bitterly. “She ran out of the house. Made it to the car. Drove off. Didn’t leave a forwarding address or anything. I tried to find her. Took me _ages. _She quit her _job,_ had a whole new start in a whole new city. Eventually her old job gave me a new work address for her, and so one weekend I drove down to Los Angeles. She had…”

Billy gave a soft noise that might have been the beginnings of another bitter laugh or a very real sob.

“She had a _whole new family,_ Steve,” he confessed. “Ready-made. Two kids. Some widower whose wife had had cancer. It was her new picture-perfect family. And she sure as hell didn’t want to have anything to do with her old one. Said it was _too hard._ She couldn’t fucking _protect _me now – now that…”

“Now that your dad knew,” Steve finished.

Billy nodded, clearly biting back some expression of emotion. “Anyway, after that night, my dad told me that it was all my fault my mom left. If I wasn’t such a fucking _queer,_ none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t need to straighten me out. So the hunting trips started. I started pretending to like girls. I _knew_ what my dad expected of me, so I tried to be that person. I learnt how to have chicks wrapped around my little finger. I learnt how to be popular. I was already decent at basketball, but I started to push myself there, see _just how good _I could become. I was surprised to find that I actually _enjoyed _basketball. It was about the _only_ part of the new and improved, _straightened-out_ Billy Hargrove I enjoyed.

“But then Dad met _Susan_, and they got _together_, and Susan won her custody battle and got _Max_, and the pair decided that California was just a _bit too full _of the past, and so we left California after appeal number four hundred and thirty seven from Max’s dad failed, and we came to _this_ shithole. Dad’s choice. Small town in the Heartland. No fucking faggots out to tempt _Daddy’s little queer_.”

The missing pieces of the puzzle that was Billy Hargrove had slotted together. _Everything_ about him now – from his jarring attitude to his occasional bursts of incredible charm to the way he’d smashed a plate over Steve’s own head all those months ago – suddenly made complete sense. _This_ was everything he’d been missing.

Steve let out a long, slow breath, finally remembering that oxygen was, in fact, a thing_._ “Shit, Hargrove, that’s…”

“Fucked up?” Billy laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, there’s a reason I don’t tell that story. Goes down like a lead balloon at parties. But yeah, that’s _me. _That’s _Billy Hargrove. _That’s-”

“Heart-breaking,” Steve breathed. “Does your dad still…”

“Slap me around?” Billy finished the sentence that Steve had no idea how to form. “Fuck yeah. Now that mom’s out the picture, it’s just _me._ He doesn’t do it to Susan, but she knows it goes on. She’s seen it a couple of times. It’s obvious she doesn’t _like_ seeing it, but she doesn’t get involved. Not like mom. Dad always tells her it’s between me and him. So she stays out of it. Gives me those pitying looks like she’s not at all fucking _complicit_. Like doing _nothing_ isn’t just as bad. It’s pathetic.”

Steve looked down at Billy’s leg, trying to swallow down the massive lump in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I – I didn’t know…”

Billy barked out a laugh – grating, vicious. “It’s like you said, Steve, why the fuck _would_ you? I don’t exactly pour my bleeding heart out to everyone, and my dad sure as _hell_ doesn’t tell people. It’s his worst fucking fear for the world to find out that his son is a faggot.”

“Stop it,” Steve murmured quietly. “Stop calling yourself that.”

Billy’s laughter took on a more incredulous edge. “Steve, I’ve been called _every goddamn name under the sun. _Fag, queer, bugger, you name it. I’m used to being called that shit, I _have_ to be used to being called that-”

“But not by _you,_” Steve cut across Billy’s tirade.

This, at last, silenced Billy. He looked down at that glimmer of defiance in Steve’s eyes as Steve finally leant back.

“We’re not at home, Billy,” he continued. “We’re _here._ It doesn’t _have_ to be that way. You don’t _have_ to call yourself all those fucking names. We’re the only ones here. We’re _free,_ Billy. Free to be _whoever_ we want to be. You don’t have to be Billy Hargrove, new King of Hawkins High, macho basketball player and womaniser. I don’t have to keep trying to be… _whoever_ the fuck I was trying to be. Liking guys doesn’t _need _to be wrong here like it is at home. Billy, we get to _write our own rules _here. It’s just us… and a whole load of monsters. There’s no _point_ in fucking… fucking _shitting all over _whoever you are. _I’m_ sure as hell not going to do it. So if you _want_ to be told that you’re _wrong_, or that you’re a fucking _fag_ or whatever, go right ahead, but you’re going to have to do it yourself. See how happy you are in the end. _Or_… you could finally just… fucking _accept_ that this is what you want, and say a big _‘fuck you’ _to everyone back home who would hate you, because what the fuck are _they _going to do about it, anyway?”

Billy looked stunned into silence. Steve also felt more than a little stunned, himself. He’d had no idea where that outburst had come from, but he realised that he’d meant every word.

“Anyway,” Steve changed tack, looking slightly flustered. “Your leg should be okay in the long term. I’ll wrap it up but you should probably rest it or something, I don’t know. You’re the one with the first aid course.”

Billy was startled into action by the sudden change of subject, sitting up slightly more as Steve began to wrap the shirt around his ankle once again. Steve wordlessly tied the damp blue fabric up into something that vaguely resembled a bandage before going and offering Billy his arm to help him stand up.

They made it as far as the bottom of the stairs before Billy found his voice.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

Steve gave a slightly dismissive twitch of the head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I meant about what you said,” Billy clarified. “Nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before.”

Steve looked at him with a small smile that was more sincere than he realised. “Yeah, well, we’re all just trying to figure out ourselves. _I _sure as hell am, anyway. Why make things more difficult than they need to be?”

-:-

“After you.”

“Ladies first.”

“Go… just – knock on the door.”

“_You_ knock on the door.”

“Dustin, this was _your_ idea!”

“Yeah, but you’re the responsible adult in the room.”

Robin rolled her eyes with a sigh before walking up to the door and knocking three times. The highly polished grand wooden door was something completely unfamiliar to her – an attempt at elegance from a house that seemed to primarily think that size was synonymous with grandeur. Robin was pretty sure the only way they’d managed to avoid having the neighbourhood watch coming down on them for not fitting in with the tidy aesthetic of this part of town was by hiding just about all of it from the street behind a tidy row of trees.

“They probably aren’t even _home,_” Robin rolled her eyes. “It’s the middle of the day.”

“Yeah, but it’s _summer,_” Dustin said like it explained everything. “Normal routines don’t apply during the holidays.”

“Er – earth to _dingus,_ adults don’t _get_ summer holidays like we do,” Robin pointed out. “Why do you think I ended up spending my time at a shitty ice cream shop with-”

She broke off as the door opened, causing her to jump back with a start. A woman who Robin had never actually seen before, let alone _met_, was standing in the doorway, looking more than a little annoyed by the interruption to her day by two strange kids. Robin took in her appearance, from her dyed blonde hair to those achingly familiar brown eyes.

This was Steve’s mom.

“Can I help you?” Linda Harrington asked with a hint of annoyance evident beneath the polite tone.

“Uh – Mrs Harrington?” Dustin asked, putting on his usual charming smile that he used to win over just about everyone. “I’m – I’m Dustin Henderson – and this is…”

“Robin Buckley,” Robin offered out a hand for her to shake. “I… I worked with Steve at Scoops Ahoy.”

Comprehension dawned upon Linda Harrington’s face, smoothing out the fine crinkles of confusion. “Right,” Linda nodded before turning to Dustin. “And you are…?”

“Oh – uh – Steve used to babysit me and my friends sometimes,” Dustin explained. “We… we got close.”

The confusion was back on her face. “Steven would _babysit?_”

“Yeah,” Dustin tried for a laugh that fell flat at the first breath. “He was actually pretty good at it – he’d give me advice and stuff…”

Dustin trailed off at the surprised look on Linda’s face.

“I never knew he did that,” she said quietly.

“We – uh – we were wondering,” Robin changed the subject. “With everything that’s happened, if you’d like a hand sorting through some of Steve’s old stuff?”

Linda looked taken aback at the suggestion. “What?”

“Yeah,” Dustin said. “I know – well, my friend, Max – her brother, Billy, was also – um – you know – _at the mall_ – she’s been really busy clearing out his room – and we thought – we knew Steve-”

“We thought you might need a hand,” Robin cut off Dustin’s babbling.

“Oh,” Linda still looked taken aback at the offer but generally looked to be more on the same page as the two teenagers stood on her doorstep. “Well, that’s a very kind offer. It’s true we haven’t got round to it, everything’s been so _busy_, but… you don’t _need_ to-”

“We want to help,” Dustin said. “Steve was a really good friend. He was… He was sort of like the big brother I’d never had…”

Dustin cringed inwardly at the way the words left his mouth, but evidently they had piqued Linda’s curiosity. She gave Dustin a strange look, almost looking through him.

“He never mentioned this…” Linda breathed. “I…”

She trailed off with a frown upon her face, still staring at Dustin.

“I suppose you’d better come in.”

-:-

Paul felt the distinct weight of each of his steps as he walked down the Indianapolis street. He’d excused himself from most of his day’s meetings to arrange this, but hopefully it wouldn’t take too long. Hopefully, the ball would be rolling by the end of the day. He knocked on the green door of the house in one of the nicer suburbs of the city.

The door opened to reveal a man Paul hadn’t seen in over a year. Dressed in comfortable chinos and a red shirt, with his hair slowly growing out of the tidily groomed hairstyle that Paul had once been so used to seeing him wear, retirement was clearly suiting James Spencer.

“Paul,” he said genially with a broad smile on his face. “It’s been far too long.”

Paul found himself breaking into the first genuine smile he’d worn in days. He followed him inside with a greeting, allowing himself to be led into the study.

“Drink?” James offered, walking over to a cabinet that held some very fine Scottish whiskey.

“It’s ten thirty in the morning,” Paul pointed out.

“Not if you’re on European time,” James gave a booming laugh.

Everything about James had always been larger than life. Where Paul had been quite reserved, James had charm and charisma that drew people towards him like a magnet. They’d become extremely good friends at law school, being two of the only people from Indiana in their year to get into Harvard Law, and after spending some time as associates at a law firm in New York, they’d ended up going back to their roots to found Harrington Spencer in Indianapolis. Their contacts in the corporate world, combined with their reputation as a formidable team, had sent clients with industrial centres in the heartland flocking to them as a firm that they trusted – not a big city faceless corporation, but playing on their Indiana heritage to create a local, familial image that helped them carve out a niche in the market which they would spend nearly the next twenty five years coming to dominate. People trusted them. People thought that they knew them.

This had been a part of the reason why the uncertainty surrounding Paul’s leave of absence after Starcourt had made everyone extremely nervous.

“So,” James said, pouring himself a glass of eighteen-year-old Glenfiddich. “Is there a reason you’ve abandoned our firm on a Monday morning to come and see me, or is it purely for my sparkling conversation?”

Paul smiled. “I wish it was just for your sparkling conversation, but there _is_ a reason.”

“Is it the reason I think it is?”

Paul gave him a curious look, which sent James into another booming laugh.

“Paul, I’m not an idiot,” he chuckled. “I’ve been paying attention to the news. I know what happened to that boy of yours, and a few weeks later you’re playing hooky to come see me, despite having never played hooky in your life. I can put two and two together.”

Paul sighed. James was many things, but tactful wasn’t one of them. He was straight to the point, with little regard for the social graces that people normally employed when trying to get there.

“I tried to call after I heard,” James’ voice took on a more serious, sombre tone. “Phone was left ringing off the hook. Clarice talked about sending a card, but I imagined you’d be getting more than enough of that kind of thing, and you’ve never exactly been one for that kind of sentimentality.”

Paul managed an uncomfortable smile. “Thanks.”

“So am I right in thinking that you want me to come back and help out for a bit?” James asked. “Lighten the load, take some of the pressure off, smooth things over with the partners and so on? Clarice may try to kill you, but just ramp up the kicked puppy thing and she might let it slide.”

Paul looked at him, confused.

“Come on,” James gave him a derisive look. “Your kid dies, of _course_ you want to spend more time with the wife, but the partners need a little bit more stability than you clocking off at two thirty every afternoon to drive back to Hawkins. So I come back, we split the management between us, take some of it off your plate, give you a bit more freedom to get back to the house at a reasonable hour in time to make her dinner a few times a week. It’s not exactly rocket science.”

Paul gave a tense smile down at his lap, not quite meeting James’ eyes.

“Actually, I had something a little more extreme in mind,” Paul said. “I want to leave Harrington Spencer.”

James’ eyebrows shot up as he leant back into his chair. “You’re thinking of _retiring?_ I know things have been rough, I can’t imagine what you must be going through, but you’re _way_ too young for that.”

“I’m about three months younger than _you,_” Paul pointed out with a laugh.

“Yes, but I have my _health_ to think of,” James snorted. “Unlike you, the stress of the job sent me into a coronary. Retirement was the only option, or else Clarice would have divorced me. You’ve got _several_ years left in you before you _need _to retire.”

“If it helps, I wouldn’t be ‘_retiring’_ retiring like you did,” Paul explained. “I’d just be retiring from the law.”

James looked at him curiously.

“I’ve decided to run for Mayor in Hawkins,” Paul said.

James leant back in his chair, the glass of whiskey held out to one side as he burst into laughter. Paul sat there, a slightly guilty grin on his face as James kept laughing at the declaration.

“Paul, you’re not a politician,” James laughed. “You’re many things, but you’re not-”

“That’s not such a bad thing, actually,” Paul pointed out. “The Mayor – Larry Kline – I’m sure you’ve met him at one of our dinner parties – he’s just been arrested for taking bribes that led to Starcourt blowing up. People are angry – hell, _I’m_ angry. When he ran for office, I donated about a quarter of my salary to his campaign. With him in charge, look what’s happened. The last disappearances and murders were in the twenties and thirties before _he_ got in charge, and then with _him_ in power, we had kids disappearing, the guy who ran the local diner was _murdered_, that lab was running all sorts of experiments that killed a girl in high school… Starcourt is the latest in a long line of tragedies, James. Nobody else seems to be stepping up to the plate to say that enough is enough. But _I_ am. I have a _responsibility_ to do it. I can bring that town in check and make sure that nobody else dies needlessly.”

James looked at him pensively. “I get where you’re coming from, but do you _really_ think you’ve got what it takes to run a _town?_”

“I built a law firm from the ground up, and it’s now one of the biggest in the country,” Paul said. “I have to try – I owe it to Tom Holloway, and I owe it to Steven. The town needs fixing, it needs bringing back into line. If I can, I have a responsibility to try.”

James leant back again, taking another sip of whiskey. “Your mind’s made up, isn’t it? What does Linda say about all this?”

“She called me crazy at first-”

“She always was the smart one.”

Paul shot him an unimpressed look. “But she’s coming round to the idea,” he finished. “She says that if I need to do this, she’ll support me through it.”

James looked long and hard at Paul. “It’s good that you’ve got her onside,” he said thoughtfully. “You’ll need it. And… I can’t deny I owe you a favour. You picked up the slack when I needed some time after Clarice’s miscarriage. And you were supportive when I decided to retire for my health. I can’t overlook that.”

Paul smiled as James drained his glass, setting it down before leaning forward.

“I’ll tell you what,” James said. “I’ll come back to the firm while you run for Mayor or do whatever you need to do to get through this. I’ll smooth things over with the partners. _But…_ there are conditions.”

Paul nodded in acceptance. He knew anything James offered would come with a caveat or ten. It always did.

“If you lose, you come back to the firm. No questions. You run it until you find a successor who isn’t going to make the partners piss their pants. I’m not letting you throw away our firm, and I’m not letting you throw away your career for a project to keep you busy instead of grieving properly. You didn’t let me do that after they told us that Clarice was never going to have kids, so there’s no way in _Hell_ I’m going to let you do the same. And if you _win…_ I’m not running the firm while you’re in office. I can’t do that to Clarice – not again. Anything I do is short-term. You win, I find someone to take the firm over. I walk away. And that means that _if_ you become Mayor, you give up the firm too.”

Paul swallowed at the cold hard truth of his decision laid out before him. He’d been expecting that much.

“Are we understood?” James asked.

-:-

Neither Robin or Dustin had been expecting Steve to have kept his bedroom even remotely tidy, and neither was disappointed.

“I mostly made a start on tidying up,” Linda explained. “I got as far as putting all the dirty clothes into the hamper, but everything in the cupboards needs sorting.”

Dustin felt an all-too-familiar twist in his chest at the sight of Steve’s room. The carpet of dirty clothes may have been gone, but there was other clutter on the surfaces and the floor. There were a few vinyl records scattered around the place, a couple of comics that Dustin had tried to lend him in the hopes of inducting him into nerd culture piled on a desk in the corner, sports magazines littered the floor by his bed, and there was even the occasional book off the shelf. Dustin noted with particular amusement a copy of _Slaughterhouse-Five _that sat on the desk by the comic books, face down, folded open on one of the earliest pages. Evidently Dustin wasn’t the only person who’d been trying to extend Steve’s culture intake beyond the latest issue of _Sports Illustrated._

Dustin hadn’t exactly expected to walk into this room and feel _nothing,_ but it surprised him at just how _strange_ it felt to be here. There were so many little mysteries, so many questions that Steve would never be able to answer. Jonathan, obviously, was responsible for _Slaughterhouse-Five,_ but how long ago must _that_ have been? Had this book been sitting there for months, with Steve never having made it past the first few pages? If so, why had he taken the effort to save his place? Why hadn’t he ever returned it? Had he just forgotten? Or had Steve just started trying to read it again, with no chance to finish it? The comics, he knew when he’d lent them to Steve, it had been back in January, but Steve had never mentioned them, and whenever Dustin asked about the comics, he’d kept saying he needed to finish them. Had he ever finished them? Had he even picked them up?

Robin seemed to be having a similar reaction to Steve’s room, but she rallied more quickly than Dustin did, finding her voice with a slightly choked quality.

“What… What needs going where?”

Linda hadn’t made it much further beyond the door. She was evidently taking in the sight before her. Neither Dustin nor Robin knew that this was the first time she’d braved being back in that room since speaking to Joyce Byers – neither of them knew the conversation had even taken place. Neither of them knew what Linda had so desperately, determinedly believed until just a few days ago. Neither of them knew that she’d been putting off sorting this room in the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that Steven might use it again.

But that was the past. She’d now accepted that he wasn’t coming back here. Sentimentality was just a knife waiting to be twisted at this point.

“Clothes, books, records are all going to Goodwill,” she said firmly. “There are some boxes in the basement, we can take them there later. Anything else… throw it out.”

The two children she’d met less than an hour ago looked at her, slightly confused.

“Oh – except for photos,” Linda suddenly turned. Maybe a _little _sentimentality was okay. “Keep the photos.”

Robin volunteered to go down and find the boxes and a few trash bags, while Dustin set to work salvaging the Vonnegut book and the comics. Linda gave him a curious look as he took off his backpack to put them in.

“Oh – uh, my – my friend’s brother lent him this,” Dustin tried his most charming smile as he held up the book. “I lent him the comics. Don’t know if he ever read them, but…”

Dustin gave a small shrug as he faded into an increasingly awkward silence. Linda gave him an unreadable look as she started to fold up a t-shirt, before looking down.

“As long as it’s out of the house, I don’t mind where it ends up,” she said dismissively. She finished folding the top and placed it neatly on the bed before extracting another one from the drawer before something occurred to her.

“So you know Jonathan Byers, then?”

Dustin looked up at the question. There was an edge to her voice, curious, guarded. She was clearly intrigued by the two strangers in her house who were now helping sort through her son’s possessions. Unmentioned, novel, a complete mystery that she could now demand answers from about a boy she should have known better than anyone.

“Uh… yeah,” Dustin said. “His brother, Will, is one of my best friends.”

Linda nodded, placing the second shirt on top of the first. “So were you _there?_”

Dustin almost dropped the bag. “What?”

“At Starcourt – were you there?” Impatient. Accusatory. Attacking.

“Uh… Yeah – yeah, I was.”

A small smile – triumphant, understanding – spread across her face as she got another top out of the drawer and refolded it into less of a crumpled heap. “I see.”

Dustin looked at Mrs Harrington with confusion. That same triumphant smile was still there as she put the top onto the pile she was creating before looking up at Dustin.

“You’re one of the people he got out,” she said.

That smile was so victorious Dustin almost felt it was predatory. There was no warmth, just realisation. Dustin’s silence confirmed her suspicions.

“I _thought_ there was something more to you two,” she said. “Robin, I assumed, was probably there, but I wasn’t sure why a _kid_ would offer to sort out his room unless there was something else going on.”

This was not a conversation Dustin wanted to have – Mrs Harrington seemed to know more than he thought she knew. He didn’t know _who_ had told her _what,_ and was determined not to say something that was going to contradict the official story. He felt that same panic well up in his chest that he’d felt at the funeral – the colours were starting to get too bright – he grabbed hold of the back of the chair –

“Mrs Harrington, I’m… I’m so sorry…” he stammered.

“Don’t be,” Linda said, and as soon as she turned away that feeling of a spotlight left him. “Steven made his own decisions. He got people out – I’m _told_ he saved a lot of lives – I suppose I should be happy about that, it’s just… it wasn’t his responsibility to do that. And now I’m left with little fragments of who he was, _none_ of which agrees with who I _thought_ he was.”

She looked up at Dustin to see him struggling to regain control of his breathing, clutching the back of the chair with white knuckles like his life depended on it.

“Are you alright?” she asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I just-”

He lowered himself into the chair, balling his hands into fists to try and hide the fact that they were shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Linda said. “I didn’t mean to torture you; I sometimes forget it must have been a deeply upsetting experience for everyone there. I’m just… trying to work out what happened to my son.”

Dustin nodded as things finally started to move back to normal. His breathing deepened as it came back under his control, and the colours returned to their normal state.

“I’m sorry,” he said, finally finding his voice as his hands unfurled. They weren’t shaking as much, but there was still a mild involuntary tremor to them as he rested them on the table. “I should have tried to help him – I should have tried to save him-”

“I don’t think there’s anything _anyone_ could have done,” Linda said, sitting on the bed. “It certainly wasn’t _your _responsibility to try.”

Dustin closed his eyes at her words. _She didn’t know. She couldn’t know._

She could never know how Steve had held the door to give him time to get out. She could never know that Steve had been taken prisoner by Russians. She could never know that they tortured him for information about the Gate, information that he’d fought not to give them. She could never know that Steve hadn’t died in some tragic accident, but instead in a moment of heroism, saving the world from the threat of an interdimensional portal and otherworldly monster hell-bent on destroying them. And she could never know that Dustin had had a chance to save him, but hadn’t taken it.

The door opened again and Robin emerged with several boxes. She was too busy negotiating them into the room to notice the lack of activity or the fact that its two occupants were now sitting down in what was clearly an emotional moment. Linda got up and started to help her, while Dustin settled for another moment in the chair, before getting up to help.

“We should probably start with the closet,” Robin suggested. “Also, I’m _absolutely_ not dealing with what’s under the bed.”

Dustin looked confused for a second, which had Robin laughing. Just like that, the uncomfortable atmosphere of Linda Harrington’s interrogation was gone.

“Oh, my strange little child friend, you’re so _innocent,_ it’s cute,” Robin laughed. “If you want to have your childhood brought to a very sudden stop, then please, by all means-”

Dustin had understood at the word _‘cute’_, so promptly held up a hand to stop her. “Thanks – thanks Robin, I got it.”

Still laughing, she opened the closet door and started pulling down some of Steve’s old shirts and jackets down before she started folding them up. She lay them across the bed while Linda put her carefully folded t shirts into one of the boxes. Dustin walked over to help, taking a blue jacket off the hanger and handing it to Robin. He turned back, making a move to take the next jacket down, before he froze.

His hands were touching a grey jacket that Dustin remembered all too well. Vivid memories of Steve flooded his brain. _Steve walking up to the Wheelers’ house with flowers in hand… Steve driving him back to his house to face Dart… Steve walking with him with a bucket of mincemeat while giving him advice about Max and haircare… Steve walking out into the junkyard with his bat to take on a pack of Demodogs by himself… Steve stood in the Byers’ living room, ready to protect them from Demogorgons and Billy alike… Steve helping them set fire to the tunnels…_

“Dude, you okay?” Robin broke him out of his reverie.

Dustin still stood there, hand frozen on the grey jacket. He closed his eyes for a second and nodded.

“First time I properly met him, he was wearing this,” Dustin explained.

“If you want it, it’s yours,” Linda said casually. “All this is just going to Goodwill anyway, so if you want to keep it, feel free.”

Dustin took it slowly off its hanger, feeling the material underneath his fingers. It felt _wrong,_ somehow, holding the jacket in his hands, knowing that he was never going to see Steve in it again.

“Go on, try it on,” Linda suggested.

Almost as though he was in a dream, Dustin slipped it round his shoulders. It hung off his arms, the cuffs stopping just at his fingers, the bottom sitting a little bit below the waistband of his shorts.

“Looks good on you,” Robin said.

“It’s a bit big,” Dustin commented, looking at himself in the mirror.

“Steven got that jacket when he was about your age,” Linda said. “It never quite fitted him at the time, either. Then he had his growth spurt and suddenly it was almost too small for him. Not that either state ever stopped him from wearing it.”

Dustin pulled the jacket around him and looked at Robin.

“You’ll grow into it,” Robin said encouragingly. “Just like he did.”

Dustin wished he could believe her.

-:-

_“Lucas? Lucas, do you copy?”_

Lucas looked up from his comic with more than a little annoyance as he found his radio on the floor – annoyance he was not shy about showing in his exasperated tone of voice.

“Yes, Mike, I copy, what’s up?”

_“Dude, you’re supposed to say ‘over’ when you’re done-”_

“Nobody _cares,_ Mike. What’s wrong?”

The absolute last thing Lucas needed or wanted to deal with was another fucking _Mike_ tantrum. He had his own problems, mostly revolving around his girlfriend and her newfound discomfort around him following the abrupt departure of her extremely racist stepfather.

_“Your girlfriend has kidnapped mine again.”_

This was not news.

“So?”

_“So El’s never bailed on me. More importantly, she won’t fucking _tell _me why she’s bailed on me. She just gave me some bullshit about going shopping – like Hopper’s ever going to let that happen – and then switched off her radio. It’s such bullshit – I bail on her _once_ and she goes all ‘I dump your ass’ on me, and then a few weeks later she’s doing the exact same thing. It’s such a double-standard.”_

None of this explained why Lucas was still having this conversation with Mike when he could be reading his comic.

“Mike, just-”

_“They’re up to something, Lucas. Maybe they’re spying on us again. They’ve been hanging out all the time since the mall.”_

“I thought you said El had never bailed on you before?”

_“Yeah, she’d never outright _‘bailed’ _bailed, but I spent weeks trying to find some alone time with her. When she’s not busy having nights in with Hopper, she’s out with Max. I’ve seen her _three times _since Starcourt. And _one _of those was our D and D game. This was _going _to be our fourth, but then she calls me up and says Max needs her and they’re going shopping. I’m telling you, they’re up to something.”_

Conspiracy theories aside, that _was_ weird. El and Mike were practically joined at the hip.

_“They’re plotting something, I bet you. Like… something to do with us, I bet. Like… they’re spying on us, making sure we’re still loyal, or else, like, testing how much we love them or something.”_

Lucas wished there was a way he could convey his massive eyeroll over the radio.

“_Or_ El is being there for Max, who’s struggling because her piece of shit stepdad walked out on her and her mom after Max trapped his son in the Upside Down and told the world he was dead,” Lucas pointed out. “She’s got a lot going on, so stop being a dick to my girlfriend.”

_“Has she talked to _you_ about any of that shit?”_

Lucas really didn’t want to answer that. Unfortunately, his silence was answer enough for Mike.

_“There you go,” _Mike’s triumphant voice came through the radio. _“If it was any of that Starcourt shit or Neil shit or anything, she’d talk to _you_ as well.”_

“Thank you for pointing that out,” Lucas didn’t bother hiding the bite in his voice.

_“Well, why _else_ wouldn’t she come to you? You just _said_ she’s your girlfriend.”_

Lucas swallowed, as something he’d been struggling with finally came to the forefront of his mind, an answer he hadn’t _wanted_ to consider, but now, at the question he’d been thinking on for so long was finally posed to him from someone outside his own head, it was the first answer that came into his mind. The answer that made the most sense. The _only_ answer that made enough sense.

He _wanted_ to delude himself with conspiracy theories like Mike was. He _wanted_ to be able to tell himself that there was another explanation for Max suddenly becoming so closed off to him, to him and _only_ to him, why she was talking to El but not to him. He _wanted_ to be able to tell himself that his girlfriend was plotting whatever fourteen-year-old girls plot to torture their boyfriends or test them, or else spending time doing things that could only be done with another girl, whatever that may be. But he _wasn’t _Mike. He wasn’t so ready to believe the crazy chaotic theories that Mike could come up with. He’d always been grounded in realism – it had been why he’d been so sceptical of El in the first place – and the reality here was as clear as day.

“Mike, seriously, just… back off Max, okay?” Lucas said. “She’ll talk to me when she’s ready.”

Assuming Neil hadn’t poisoned her completely against him.

-:-

It felt strange for Linda to walk out of that room with Steven’s life packed up into tidy cardboard boxes.

Robin had borrowed her mom’s car for the day and volunteered to drive some of the boxes down to Goodwill when she left, but Linda offered them a drink after they’d finished loading up her car. It became immediately apparent that the ‘drink’ was much more of an excuse for Linda to interrogate Dustin and Robin about the Steve that they knew.

Almost an hour later, just after they had opened a bottle of wine for Robin and Linda to share, having collectively decided without his input that Dustin was too young to drink, a car pulled up in the driveway. The conversation about Steve’s job at Scoops Ahoy was cut off as the front door opened and a man neither Robin nor Dustin had ever seen out of pictures walked into the living room. His face had a very similar bone structure to Steve, but with his greying hair, neatly trimmed and styled, so in contrast to his son’s, and a smart suit that cost more than the average car perfectly tailored to his figure, it was hard to imagine someone _less_ like Steve.

Paul Harrington stopped in the doorway, frowning at the two teenagers who were sat on his couch.

“Hello,” he said in that same wary voice that his wife had used when first confronted with them. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Linda, fortunately, came to their rescue. “Paul, this is Dustin and Robin. Steven would occasionally babysit Dustin and Robin worked with him at the ice cream shop.”

Dustin and Robin waved as the awkwardness mounted. Paul nodded dismissively.

“Pleasure,” he said as he put down his briefcase and started to walk towards the kitchen before stopping dead.

“Hold on,” Paul said, turning back towards Dustin. “Did you say Steven was your _babysitter?_”

If Dustin had felt on the spot before with Linda, it was nothing to how he felt now. “Uh… yeah. He was actually really good at it-”

“Are you sure you weren’t thinking of somebody else?”

Linda, once again, came to Dustin’s rescue. “Apparently not,” she cut through, glaring at her husband. “Darling, get yourself a glass and join us for a drink.”

The ice in her tone broached no room for any argument – at least, any argument Paul was prepared to have. He vanished into the kitchen and emerged a second later with a crystal wine glass.

“I’m sorry about my husband,” Linda said to Dustin and Robin, the last remnants of ice not quite being thawed by the warmth she was clearly trying to inject into her tone. “He sometimes forgets his manners after a long day at work.”

She took another sip of wine, glaring at her husband as he picked up the bottle and poured himself a healthy measure. He stood up and leant against a side table, surveying Dustin and Robin. Robin tried to make herself feel more at ease by taking another sip, but she felt that cold grey stare fixed on her.

“Dustin and Robin have been helping me sort through Steven’s room,” Linda explained.

Paul’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s brave of you.”

“It’s no trouble,” Robin said. “Steve was a good friend.”

Paul nodded dismissively again. “Well, how much do we owe you?”

“We – we don’t want money, Mr Harrington…”

Eyebrows raised again. A frown followed, before he looked warily again at them.

Linda decided to change the subject. “So what did James say?”

Paul’s expression eased at the change of subject, and Dustin and Robin thanked whatever God there was that Linda had evidently had years of dealing with Paul. It was now extremely obvious to Dustin and Robin _why_ Steve had never had a good relationship with his father. In the three minutes that they’d known him, they’d already felt like they were under an intense spotlight – like there was no guarantee that any answer, no matter how truthful, would ever be good enough for him.

“He said yes,” Paul explained. “He’ll take it over in the short term, but if it works out, in the longer term, he’ll find someone else to run the firm.”

It took a second for Dustin to understand what exactly had just been said.

“Hold on, you’re leaving your job?”

Paul’s head snapped back towards Dustin in that same scrutinising glare. “Yes.”

“Because of what _happened?_”

Paul’s eyebrows raised again. “In a manner of speaking.”

Robin looked at Dustin, before turning back to Paul. “W-why?”

“Are you _retiring_ or something?” Dustin asked.

Robin winced at the complete lack of tact demonstrated by Dustin, but fortunately Paul laughed. It was a hard, edged sound, bitter with only the slightest hint of humour.

“No, I’m not retiring,” Paul said. “I’m making a lateral move into local politics.”

Dustin and Robin looked confused for a second, before turning back to the man stood in front of them, confusion etched on both their faces.

“Paul’s thinking about running for Mayor,” Linda supplied, taking another sip of her wine.

That… wasn’t what either of them expected.

“You’re _what?_” Dustin finally found his voice.

Paul stood up straight, walking towards the side cabinet. Linda had relocated the photo she’d found in Steven’s room to the top of the cabinet, and Paul’s fingertips lingered on the frame.

“This town has gotten out of control,” he said. “It’s not _safe_ anymore. The previous people in charge of Hawkins have let things get out of control for their own gain and people have died because of it. Hawkins was _meant _to be a safe place to raise your family. It’s why we _live _here. It’s why we sent Steven to school here. And look how _that_ worked out.

“Something needs to be done. Now that Kline is gone, it’s the perfect time for a change. Nobody _else_ seems to be doing it. So why _not? _I _know_ what’s going on in this town. The flaws are there, clear as crystal. We’ve got an underused police department run by a drunk, the hospital and fire department are underfunded while an ineffective council lines its pockets with bonuses that could be going-”

“Paul, that’s enough, they’re _kids, _not voters,” Linda cut him off.

Robin and Dustin looked at each other warily. Robin took another sip of her wine, before setting it down on the table with a certain finality.

“Well, it was lovely to meet you both,” she said. “But we’d probably better get going if we’re going to make it to Goodwill before it closes.”

“Great to meet you,” Dustin echoed, before something occurred to him. “Oh – there was something else – Mrs Harrington, I didn’t see any sports equipment in Steve’s room, but we played baseball a couple of times. I know he had a bat somewhere – do you want me to take that too?”

Paul frowned at him. “You don’t look like the baseball type.”

“I’m not,” Dustin tried for a winning smile. “I think Steve wanted to try and get me into it, but it didn’t really work out.”

Paul frowned at him for another second before evidently deciding that life was too short. Linda pursed her lips, thinking.

“Well, if it wasn’t in his room, it might be in the trunk of his car,” she said. She got up and went to her handbag before handing him a set of keys. “Feel free to go and have a look, but don’t worry if you can’t find it, it’s not that important.”

Dustin smiled at her, his heart beating fast. Robin followed him out of the house to the driveway, relieved that she’d chosen to park on the street just outside. Out of the microscope that Paul Harrington seemed to be holding over them, Robin found herself breathing slightly more easily, but was surprised when Dustin was, if anything, more agitated.

“Whatever happens, _don’t _let the Harringtons see,” he instructed as he popped the trunk open.

There was nothing immediately apparent in the trunk. There was a layer of detritus that was to be entirely expected, but Dustin evidently knew something Robin didn’t, because without a second thought, he lifted a flap that exposed a compartment where there was usually a spare tyre, and Robin felt her jaw drop.

“_Whoah._”

A baseball bat sat there, nails hammered into the head of it.

“_This _is why I wanted to do this,” Dustin explained. “Can you _imagine_ if the Harringtons found this? It would raise so many questions.”

Robin admired it as Dustin took it out of the trunk before relocking the car.

“Put this in your trunk,” he instructed, handing the bat to Robin. “I’ll go give back the keys. And be careful – that’s Steve’s Demogorgon bat.”

Dustin went back inside and returned the keys to Linda, who gushed over him with profuse thanks. He almost felt his heart racing as she saw him on his way with a wave to Robin, who was standing by the car, smiling in a passable imitation of someone with nothing to hide. They finally got into the seats and together let out an exhale of relief.

“_Well_,” Robin said, finally processing all the revelations.

“I think we’d better return Vonnegut to Jonathan,” Dustin said. “Like, _right now._”

-:-

The arrival of Sam Owens at his desk never boded well for Hopper.

Particularly not a Sam Owens who was looking at him with that slightly sad smile that meant that there was _absolutely _another shoe waiting to be dropped.

“Hey there, Jim,” he said genially in a tone that would not have fooled him even if Sam Owens was a complete stranger. “Any chance we could talk?”

“Any chance you just want to catch up over coffee?”

Sam smiled sadly at him, that look in his eyes just _telling_ Hopper that Sam was about to ruin his day.

“What is it, Doc?” Hopper was not having his bullshit today.

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

Hopper looked up with an unimpressed look. “Yeah, no shit. You look like someone kicked your puppy.”

“I just got a call,” Sam said, letting out a low breath. “Someone from the FBI or something.”

_Oh, for God’s sake, just get on with it. _“And?”

“The powers that be are going to release Colonel Ozerov back to the Russians.”

…_Well, Sam did promise bad news._

“You’re _kidding,_ right?” Hopper asked, his eyes widening. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

Sam helped himself to a seat. “I wish I was,” he said heavily. “But apparently there are six American soldiers that the Russians have agreed to release back to us in exchange for him. It was a no-brainer for the President.”

“And what about the world-ending threats?” Hopper felt his anger rising. “We still don’t know what the Russians were up to in Starcourt. And what about the kids? Are _they_ going to be safe?”

“There are conditions to his release,” Sam explained. “If he ever comes back into the States, that’s grounds enough for us – or any American – to shoot him on sight. He’s a dead man if he comes back here.”

“And what about what he _knows?_” Hopper snapped. “He knows _way _too much. What if he sends people to try and open the Gate again?”

“I know,” Sam said sadly. “That’s why I’m telling you. We need to keep watch. The Russians can only open the Gate from here. They’d need to come back into Hawkins in order to be a threat.”

Hopper scowled at Sam. “You _sure_ about that, Doc?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Decade everyone! And here's to a significantly better decade than the last...


	18. Part 2 Chapter 11: A Weaker Version Of Red

“You ready?” Max asked.

El nodded. She was getting used to this. It was getting easier. Almost habitual. Like the Coke can. She pulled on the blindfold, and the world went black.

-:-

“_Holy shit!_”

Billy sat bolt upright, startling Steve. A few days – or _days equivalent,_ as he put it in his head – of ‘taking it easy’ had mostly revolved around Billy lying flat on the bed, staring grumpily at the ceiling, with his leg elevated on salvaged cushions while Steve occasionally went downstairs and heated up a can of whatever he found first.

Now, however, he did not have to look far to understand what had so surprised Billy. He’d heard it too, a crack like lightning as the ground split.

Steve rushed towards the window, peering out into the darkness. “It’s nearby.”

Billy eased himself upright and hobbled over to the door. Steve noted with some surprise that he was actually capable of walking – for _this_, at least.

“Billy, we can’t afford to miss this Gate,” Steve said. “We’ve got to go. _Now._”

-:-

El held the Gate steady. She was pushing herself – testing herself. She could find her limits. She knew what _too much_ felt like. She could hold it longer. She wasn’t afraid of the Gate anymore.

-:-

Steve was running – _running _– faster than he thought he ever could. Billy was behind him. Like him, Billy was pushing through the pain. The pain in Billy’s leg, the pain in Steve’s chest, they _had_ to be secondary. Only adrenaline could push them further.

The Mind Flayer could not get there first this time.

Only one of them needed to make it at first. If _one _of them got there, then they could tell the Party that the other was alive. _Somehow_, they would find a way to get home. They just needed to get to this Gate.

At least, this was what Steve was telling himself as Billy started to fall behind.

He threw a glance over his shoulder as he noticed Billy’s silhouette fall out of his periphery. He slowed his stride a fraction, until Billy just yelled at him. The blood pounding in his ears almost drowned out the words, but he didn’t need to be able to read lips to be able to decipher the single worded command being tossed his way.

“_Go!_”

It was all Steve needed.

He pushed himself – he _had_ to push himself. The Mind Flayer had to be on its way – it would be there soon – he _had_ to get there first. Free from being tied to Billy’s pace, he only had his own limitations to contend with.

His chest was burning – the feeling that had been intensifying since his arrival in the Upside Down was being aggravated by the sprint Steve was now forcing himself into, but it wouldn’t matter. He could make it home – he _had_ to make it home – both his and Billy’s lives depended on it.

He could see the Gate – the forest wasn’t especially dense where he was – it was still a little way away at the top of a ridge – but it was _close._ No sign so far of the Shadow, he just needed to get there –

Something caught his foot.

He smacked facedown against the mud, hitting the floor hard. Any hope he’d had of adrenaline suppressing the oncoming coughing fit until he was through the Gate vanished on impact. The air was knocked out of his lungs – Steve gasped, trying to snatch as much air back inside them as possible, but it was like there was something blocking his airway, choking him –

He tried to force a violent cough to expel whatever it was, but nothing seemed to be coming up. If anything, it was just making it worse. He couldn’t afford to have this happen _now,_ he had to get to the Gate, but when he tried to press his good hand into the dirt to push himself upright, his body gave another violent heave as he tried to get more air into his lungs. His vision danced in front of him. He couldn’t even _stand_, but he had to, _he had to. _He had to get to the Gate.

-:-

El could feel it – something was rushing towards the Gate. Something powerful – something she had only tested herself against once.

This was her limit.

-:-

Whatever dim light was coming from the sky was obscured by the huge, terrifying shadow that passed overhead. Steve’s heart sank, and his body collapsed further into the dirt. _He was too late._

Suddenly, he felt hands on his shoulders. Strong hands, but gentle, _surprisingly_ gentle.

“Steve,” Billy’s voice said above him. “Steve, can you hear me?”

Steve kept his eyes on the top of the hill, where the dim red light reflecting off the trees was vanishing into the obscuring shadow that hovered above it. He could feel himself shaking, trembling, he was still struggling to breathe…

Billy’s hands rolled him over onto his side. He tried to protest, giving a soft groan, trying to reach out his arm towards the hill. _There was still time, wasn’t there?_

“The Gate…” he gasped.

“Hey – hey – _hey!_” Billy murmured. “It’s too late. The Mind Slayer – Flayer – _thing_ – is there. We’ll get it next time, okay?”

Steve kept his eyes on the ridge, where the red light flickered before going out.

“Let’s get you home,” Billy said quietly. “Looks like _you_ need some bed rest just as much as I do.”

-:-

Dustin thanked… maybe not _God,_ but the powers behind late shifts – that his mother was working late. It gave him and Robin a chance to sneak the bat into his bedroom without being asked _why_ he now had a bat with nails sticking out of it. He zipped it up inside the duffel bag that had previously housed the disassembled _Cerebro _and hoped that if his mom was hanging stuff up in his closet, she wouldn’t go looking inside a sports bag that was last used for its intended purpose when he was about four.

Speaking of Cerebro, that reminded him – he needed to call Suzie. Assuming she didn’t completely hate his guts after he’d vanished into a pit of grief. She’d understand once he explained, though. Probably.

“Hey, Robin, grab that radio,” Dustin said, pointing to a radio on his bed. “It should be on frequency one four point one five eight. Call the others, tell them there’s a code red and to meet us at Hopper’s. Actually, wait – not a code red, it’s not that strong. Tell them it’s a code… what’s a weaker version of red?”

Robin’s brow furrowed in an extremely confused and slightly worried look, before going and picking up the radio. She didn’t bother checking the exact frequency – she didn’t know how to, for one. She turned it on, and tentatively started to speak into it.

“Hey guys,” she said, feeling strangely nervous. “This is Robin here with Dustin, we’ve got a code _pink, _we need to meet at… did you say _Hopper’s _place?”

Static blared for a second, before –

_“What the hell is a code pink?”_

Robin was not familiar enough with the members of the party to know exactly _who_ had just insulted her knowledge of colours, but she was familiar enough not to take that kind of shit from a boy who was still struggling through puberty.

“A weaker version of a code _red_, dingus,” she snapped back before she could catch herself.

_“Do you mean a code orange?”_

Robin glared at Dustin, blaming him entirely for having her communicate with a child she’d only met when he’d been looking to score free cinema trips off Steve. _The snarky little shit…_

Fortunately, Dustin also seemed to be equally annoyed and took the radio off of Robin, having carefully stowed away the bat.

“Whatever, Mike, code pink, code orange, code _rainbow_, it doesn’t _matter!_ Just… meet us at Hopper’s as soon as you can, okay? And bring Nancy and Jonathan, and Mrs Byers, _everyone!_”

_“Fine, but what’s the point of _having _color codes if nobody’s going to use them-”_

Dustin shut off the radio, cutting Mike’s grumbling short.

“Do you know the way to Hopper’s?”

Robin looked at him, confused and extremely annoyed. “As in Police Chief Hopper’s place? _No,_ Dustin, I’ve never been there before.”

“Right, I’ll navigate. Let’s go.”

Robin waited as Dustin led the way to her car, looking at his back incredulously. Apparently, being friends with Dustin meant becoming his personal chauffeur.

No wonder Steve had always said that these shitheads were the worst.

-:-

Hopper was almost _glad_ Eleven was out spending the day with Max. Almost.

It meant that when he crashed through the door and poured himself an (un)healthy measure of bourbon neat into a glass and downed it in one, he didn’t get a reproachful look from the door when he poured himself a second measure.

The government was going to let that Russian scumbag _go._ He didn’t know what to tell the kids – or even whether to tell them _anything._ He remembered the conversation he’d had with that Buckley girl when she’d identified him.

_He walked into the house to be greeted by a woman he could only assume was Mrs Buckley, who’d explained that Robin was in her room. The door was closed, and even the soft knock from her mother had sent something crashing with a thud before the door was opened a crack. This kid was _scared. _Really scared._

_It was sad that she had such a good reason to be._

_A book was lying facedown on the bedside table – something about the rise of jazz in the twenties and thirties. It looked like it was hardly a page turner, but, Hopper supposed, if someone was interested… El, after all, had spent two weeks excitedly telling Hopper about the Dungeons and Dragons manual as she read it cover to cover._

_He noticed, with a sense of dread, that there were other books underneath the book about jazz – books on Russia, from the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalin to the space race and – he noticed with some alarm – The Hunt for Red October._

_The girl seemed to follow his gaze as she let him in and closed the door. Her mother was evidently giving them a moment of peace._

_“I’ve been doing research,” she explained._

_Hopper frowned, pointing at the Tom Clancy book. “You know that’s not real, right?” _

_She shrugged. “Well, apparently we live in a world with monsters, and Russians built a mall to cover up a portal to another dimension, so ‘real’ is evidently subjective.”_

_Hopper… couldn’t argue with that._

_“Do you want something?” she asked. “Assuming you didn’t come here to interrogate me about my reading habits.”_

_Hopper nodded. “We’ve arrested a large number of Russian soldiers and identified several more who were killed. If you feel up to it, I need you to identify if any of them were the ones who interrogated you and Steve Harrington.”_

_The mention of the Harrington kid’s name sent a jolt of pain, still far too fresh, through her eyes, but she extinguished it. “Sure,” she said flatly. She sat down on her bed, making a big deal of swinging her legs onto it before flopping back against the pillows. Hopper ended up sitting down on the edge of the bed, which seemed to be the only place to sit anyway._

_He laid out a series of photographs, each with a name underneath. Some were scans taken from intelligence files, others were mugshots, and there were a couple of Polaroids. He held one particular photo back – she didn’t need to see the corpse of the doctor Hopper had shot just yet._

_The girl reluctantly sat upright, scanning over the photos with a carefully guarded detachedness. Her eyes eventually settled on one of the mugshots – a man with greying hair and a dark scowl._

_“Him,” she said softly. “He was the one who was asking the questions. He was giving the orders.”_

_Hopper had been careful not to give away any physical cues that would lead her to choose it – in the same way as a line-up, she needed to identify him completely on her own. He was the most senior ranking officer they’d found, a Colonel, and by all accounts, he had been the one in charge. All major decisions seemed to go through him._

_“Colonel Ozerov,” she breathed, playing with the name on her tongue. “I thought he was a General or something. What… what happened to him?”_

_The mask of apathy and indifference was gone, her fear palpable. Hopefully, what he had to say was going to put her at ease. “He’s been arrested. He’s currently in custody, awaiting trial. At this point, it’s just a formality, he’ll be spending the rest of his life in an American prison.”_

_He gave her a small smile, hoping that it was enough to reassure her. She looked up, such desperate hope in her eyes. She brought her free hand up to her mouth, muffling a strange noise. He watched as she started to laugh, high, hysterical, tears being brought to her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut, as laughs turned into sobs and then back into laughs again, and she fell back against the pillows._

_“Does that mean it’s over?”_

_Hopper almost missed the question. He looked at her as she stared at the ceiling, her eyes bright. He gave her a small nod._

_“It never really _felt _over,” she gasped – Hopper still couldn’t decide if she was laughing or crying. “I didn’t know if he was still out there. The guy in the car outside – he never bothered me, but just _seeing _him there reminded me – every time I left the house – I wasn’t safe. He could still come back. I see him doing that shit to Steve _every fucking night_, knowing he could come back and do the same thing to me, or Dustin, or Will Byers, or whoever in the day. But he’s _gone. _It’s over now. He can’t hurt me anymore.”_

_Hopper smiled at her sadly. Her fear of the knock on the door was entirely understandable. He just needed to ask her one more question._

_“I just need you to identify one more photograph,” he said. “If you feel up to it. It’s a formality, I just need to check off that one box.”_

_She sat up, tears still shining in her eyes. She nodded, the defensive mask of indifference gone in the face of sheer relief._

_“I’ve got a photo of the man I shot down there,” Hopper explained. “It’s from after… after we got out of there. You only mentioned two interrogators – a soldier and a doctor. We just need to confirm that the man I shot was the doctor.”_

_“It was,” Robin said. “I don’t need to see a photograph – I don’t _want _to see a photograph. I know it was him.”_

_Hopper nodded sagely. “Was there anyone else in the room who may have heard what you and Harrington told Ozerov?”_

_Robin frowned slightly, looking at the photographs spread out before her. “Yeah, there might have been a couple of soldiers, I think, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you what they looked like. I’m sorry.”_

_“It’s okay,” Hopper said. “You did good, kid. Thanks.”_

_He got up to leave –_

_“Chief Hopper…”_

_He turned to look at the girl in what he hoped was an inviting way._

_“I… I never asked…” she was clearly steeling herself for something. “Did… Did Steve _say_ anything? Before…”_

_Fresh tears were shining in her eyes as she looked at him. Her lips were pressed together. He could tell she was biting the inside of her cheek in anticipation of the answer. Hopper gave a small nod._

_“He – uh… He told me to look after you all,” he said. “Like I was planning on doing anything else.”_

“Shit…” Hopper muttered into his glass. The memory of that conversation wasn’t exactly a welcome reminder. He was going to have to tell her. The kids would find out sooner or later, anyway. He’d long given up his dreams of those kids just staying the fuck out of this.

He went and poured himself another measure of bourbon. The conversation could wait until tomorrow. He needed to wrap his head around the concept before forcing himself to explain it to the kids. And what better tool to help wrap his head around something than –

_Knock knock knock._

Well, that answered the question of where El had gotten to. She needed to get better about remembering her keys. With a huff and a half-prepared lecture about being late waiting on the tip of his tongue, he got up and unlocked the lock –

_That wasn’t El._

Mike, Nancy and Lucas were stood at his door, looking for all the world like they would have rather been anywhere else.

“Uh… El and Max aren’t here…” Hopper said, extremely confused and slightly put out by the three teenagers stood on his doorstep looking expectant.

“Yeah, we _know,_” Mike said snidely. _God, he really was a little shit. _“We’ve got a code _pink_ at this house.”

Hopper found himself brushed to one side as Mike, Lucas and Nancy filed into his place without any kind of invitation. His brain was still busy processing Ozerov, and he didn’t have a lot of headspace to be dealing with the sudden arrival of several teenagers.

“What the… What the hell is a code _pink?_”

“Why don’t you ask Dustin or his new best friend Robin?” Mike hit back. _What the hell did El see in this kid?_ “They’re the ones who called it.”

“_No_,” Hopper said, as though simply saying it loudly would somehow undo things were not under his control. “No, no, no, _Joyce’s _house is the hub of all your stupid codes, why are you all _here?_”

“Like he said, ask Dustin,” Nancy answered. “Jonathan’s driving his mom and Will here. Apparently, they want everyone.”

Well, it was a relief that he wasn’t going to be the only adult in the room.

“Where are El and Max?” Lucas asked, toning down the average level of snarky comments in the room. He, at least, seemed to acknowledge that Hopper had not asked for this, or in any way consented to this, and was more in the dark than any of them, given that he didn’t have access to a radio.

“Uh… I think they went shopping,” Hopper said. “Dr Owens says it should be safe enough for her to start high school in the fall, and it should be okay for her to be seen around town.”

Lucas nodded quietly. Hopper decided he needed another drink.

Suddenly, the front door opened, and in came two girls, who stopped dead, looking at the sudden assembly of people in front of them.

“What the hell are you all doing here?” Max finally asked.

“Dustin called a code _pink_,” Mike said.

“A code-”

“Less extreme than a code red,” Lucas supplied.

“Which you’d _know about_ if either of you had your radios on,” Mike said.

Max’s face split into an outraged expression that Lucas recognised as the flash of lightning right before the storm hit. “_Excuse me?_ We wanted to have a _girls’ _day, is that such a _crime?_”

“Yeah, is that a _crime?_” El jumped in.

Mike’s mouth opened in outrage mimicking Max’s. “I can’t believe this!” he said. “You give me such shit for _lying _to you, just because _he_ went all psycho on me about spending way too much time with you-”

“Hey!” Hopper cut in, not impressed with how his name was being dragged into the argument.

“-And now you’re doing the _exact same thing! _And of course, whatever happens, _I_ get shit for it!”

“We were _shopping!_” Max snapped.

“_Bullshit!_”

“Mike!” Nancy admonished.

“What did you _buy?_” Mike ignored his sister.

Max opened her mouth for a split second before answering. “We didn’t _buy_ anything; we didn’t take any money!”

“So you spent _all day_ shopping, and you didn’t buy _anything?_”

“The fun isn’t about _buying _stuff, it’s about spending the day together _looking!_”

“Mike, seriously, calm down,” Nancy hissed.

Mike rounded on Nancy. “They’re _lying!_”

“Friends don’t _lie!_” El snapped. She looked upset. She glared at Mike, who at last seemed to realise that he’d crossed a line. He had the decency to look a bit abashed as he turned away. Lucas was finally able to get a word in edgeways.

“Did you have fun?” he asked. Nice and light. Friendly.

“Yes,” Max snapped. She didn’t seem to realise that the inquisition was over.

Jonathan arrived with Will and Joyce a few minutes later. They walked into a slightly unnecessarily tense atmosphere. Mike, Lucas and Nancy were sat on the couch, Hopper was stood in the kitchen with his glass of bourbon being constantly topped up, Max and El were sat in El’s room with the door open a crack, and no sign of Dustin or Robin.

“What’s going-”

Joyce broke off at the sight of Hopper frantically shaking his head in the kitchen. She felt as though she could cut the tension with a knife. They joined the awkward silence, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

Eventually, Will broke the silence, getting increasingly bored with Mike and Lucas’ _girl trouble._

“Do we know what this is about?”

“Nope,” Mike said coldly.

Will tilted his head slightly, slumping against the radiator. It was off – the heatwave didn’t exactly call for it.

Joyce went and joined Hopper in the kitchen area. She got herself a glass and took the bottle of bourbon off Hopper, pouring herself a measure about half the size of Hopper’s. “What’s going on?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Hopper said. “Teenagers having arguments.”

“I meant about this… code _whatever._ What’s that about?”

“Joyce, I didn’t know this was _happening_ until Mike showed up at my door.”

Fortunately, they were spared any further speculation by the sound of a car drawing up outside. There was a sound of Dustin swearing at the sight of the other cars before the door opened, revealing him rushing in, Robin following at a more sedate pace. Hopper noticed that her arm wasn’t in a sling anymore.

“Dustin, what the hell?” was Mike’s greeting.

“Kid, why has my house been descended on?” Hopper asked.

“Uh,” Dustin chose to ignore Mike and focus on the far more physically imposing threat that was an irate Hopper having had his quiet evening interrupted. “I… We need to talk to all of you, and… it was more likely that Joyce would come _here_ rather than you go anywhere else.”

The kid wasn’t _wrong,_ but that didn’t make the invasion of privacy any better.

“Dustin, seriously,” Mike was never one to be ignored. “What the hell, man? You’ve been MIA for weeks, you’re _barely_ there at the D and D game, and now you and Robin are calling a code… _pink?_ I know you’ve been upset about Steve-”

“Funny you should mention Steve, actually,” Dustin cut across him. “We – uh – we were-”

“We were helping clear out Steve’s stuff,” Robin took over, taking pity on Dustin. “Looking for a _bat. _While we were there, we met his parents.”

Nancy perked up, joining the conversation properly. “Are they okay?” she asked. “I got a call from his mom the other day asking about Barb’s parents. It was… weird.”

“Well,” Robin said. “His dad has apparently quit his job.”

“Wait, _what?_”

“Yeah,” Dustin said. “And here’s the kicker.”

Nancy raised her eyebrows.

“Apparently, he’s running for Mayor.”

A stunned silence greeted these words. Nancy was rendered completely speechless. Hopper stared at the kid standing in his living room, struggling to find his voice.

“He’s running for _Mayor?_” he finally stammered out.

“Yeah,” Dustin said breathlessly. “He says he wants to make Hawkins safe again, he was talking about people letting things get out of control for money or something.”

“Well, is he _wrong?_” Jonathan asked incredulously. “Why is this such a bad thing?”

“Because he was talking about what he would fix,” Dustin said. “He was pointing out loads of flaws – he called Hopper a _drunk_ – he’s on the warpath, Jonathan. He’s looking for scapegoats for what happened to Steve, and that’s exactly what we are if he finds out. If he starts looking into Hawkins Lab, particularly if he’s the _Mayor,_ then we’re all exposed. And he’s _angry_, Jonathan. Really fucking angry. If he finds out about us – about _El_ – and starts trying to use us as scapegoats for Steve’s death, who knows _what _he’ll do.”

“Dustin’s right,” Nancy said quietly. “If he’s quit his _job_, we’ve got to take this seriously. This won’t go away. He runs a corporate law firm called _Harrington Spencer_. His… his _Christmas bonus_ is more than the Mayor’s annual salary. He wouldn’t walk away from that on a whim. And he’s not exactly the kind of person who leaves something alone. If… if he _does_ start looking into all this… it could break the whole thing wide open.”

Hopper poured himself another bourbon. His day was _not_ getting any better. He drained his glass in one and tried to pour himself another only to finish off the bottle. He wondered if there was any truth in Harrington’s assessment of him as a drunk. He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Sam Owens the day after breaking the news to all the many parents and family members.

_The Harringtons aren’t rational like us… They’re not used to being told ‘no’…You saw what happened with the Hollands, they mortgaged their house and hired Murray Bauman who basically destroyed our entire operation. Now imagine a family with the Harringtons’ resources. They don’t just have the money in this town, they are the money. They’ll get all those fancy lawyers down here and they’ll subpoena just about every bit of paperwork that’s ever existed in this town. This whole thing gets busted wide open, and everyone – including those kids – will end up in the spotlight… So you let them grieve, you let them move on.”_

Well, Paul Harrington wasn’t exactly _moving on._

Hopper understood Harrington’s motives. There were days after Sarah had died when he’d wanted nothing more than to shout and scream and rage at someone. At the doctors for not doing enough. At Diane for not spotting the signs sooner. At the world of modern medicine for not having a cure for his little girl, who didn’t deserve to die so young. At cancer for taking his daughter away. At himself for not having the answers, for not being able to make each and every one of those things happen, for not being able to keep his promises to keep her safe, for not being able to make the hurt go away, for not being able to see her fulfil those dreams.

But each one of those was undeserved. He knew that. Which was why he’d walked away from the doctors, from Diane, and tried to drink himself away from himself. He’d found his answers in the bottom of a bottle.

Paul Harrington had simply found his answers in vengeance.

Hopper couldn’t fault his motives. As far as Paul Harrington was concerned, his kid had died in a tragic fire. It had been painfully apparent from that first conversation on the matter that Harrington blamed Hopper for not managing to save his kid. _If_ Harrington became Mayor, it would make Harrington the closest thing Hopper would have to a boss, which, given the circumstances, was not an inviting prospect. Life would probably become very difficult.

“Shit,” he finally breathed out involuntarily.

“Well, just because he’s running for Mayor doesn’t mean he’s going to _become_ Mayor,” Max pointed out. “Who else would run against him?”

“There’s the people on the town council,” Hopper said. “One of them is acting as Mayor at the moment, they’ll probably end up running-”

“Yeah, but that’s exactly the kind of people Steve’s dad wants to take down,” Dustin pointed out. “You didn’t hear him, it was like he holds anyone who’s in charge responsible.”

“He’s not the only one,” Joyce said. “A few people who have come into the shop have said that Kline’s arrest has made them furious. I… I think Mr Harrington will be very popular with them.”

“Right, so what do we do?” Dustin asked.

Hopper walked out of the kitchen area and leant heavily against a wall, his chair having been stolen.

“Nothing,” Hopper said. “I’m not about to have you guys interfering with local politics. There’s not a lot we can do about this. And frankly, we’ve got bigger problems.”

He found himself looking at Robin, and wished she wasn’t looking right back at him.

“_‘Bigger problems’_ – what bigger problems?”

Hopper looked away from Robin, wishing he hadn’t drunk his bourbon so fast. He looked at the dregs in his glass before speaking.

“The government’s going to release Colonel Ozerov.”

This was almost universally met with blank stares, with one very notable expression. Robin’s face paled, she sat up straighter, her eyes wide.

“_Who?_” Mike asked, reminding Hopper once again that he hated that kid. Not that he was biased because he was dating his daughter. Never.

“The guy who ran the Russian base.”

The answer came from Robin, her voice slightly breathless. Hopper could only feel sympathy for her as comprehension dawned on everyone else’s faces.

“He can’t be released,” she said firmly. “He _can’t_ be, he _can’t!_”

“I understand, but-”

“No, you _don’t!_” she snarled vehemently. “He _tortured_ Steve, he _shot _me – why the _hell_ is he being released?”

“The government’s doing some deal with the Soviets,” Hopper explained. “Apparently, if we return him, we get six soldiers back. The deal is he can’t come back to the States, and if he ever _does_, we can shoot him on sight.”

“But what if they try and open the Gate again?” Mike asked.

“We don’t know that they _can,_” Joyce said. “Alexei said that they came to Hawkins to open the Gate because they _couldn’t_ open it in Russia. Here was the only place where it was possible.”

“So you think they might try _again?_” Dustin asked.

“I don’t know,” Hopper snapped. “I’m telling you this so you can keep an eye out. Nothing’s happened _yet,_ but if something _does_ start to kick off, no independent investigating, no little group projects. You see something that doesn’t look right, you come talk to _me._ If something happens again, we do this _together_. From the very beginning. No investigating strange rats on your own, no sauna tests, no breaking into secret Russian bases without talking to _me_ first. We’re a _team_ now. And it’s _my_ job to keep you safe.”

He was met with several stony-faced glares from teenagers, but he discovered he didn’t care very much. He wasn’t having anyone else on his conscience.

“Now, all of you, _go home._ It’s late, and I wanted an early night _before_ Henderson decided that my cabin was a base for all your codes.”

With less snap-to-it efficiency than Hopper would have liked, the kids started dragging themselves out of chairs and towards their cars. There was some argument about whether Lucas could go with Robin and Dustin rather than Nancy until Robin pointed out that her car was full of boxes that she’d drop off at Goodwill the following morning, which prompted Dustin to stop, calling after Jonathan as he took off his backpack.

Dustin fished something out of his backpack, before running to catch up to Jonathan. He pressed the copy of _Slaughterhouse-Five_ into Jonathan’s hands, ignoring the confused look that he was given as he went and sat in the passenger seat of Robin’s car.

“Figured you might want your book back,” Dustin called.

-:-

Billy was doing breathing exercises with Steve as he half-carried Steve back into the living room.

“In… two… three… hold… out… two… three. And…”

Steve was doing his best to mimic the rhythmic breathing pattern Billy was illustrating, but his chest was burning. It was like there was something pressing against his lungs, or his throat, or his windpipe, or _something,_ Steve wasn’t entirely sure what.

He wasn’t entirely sure of a lot of things at that moment.

Billy’s face swam before his as he realised he was sitting down. He vaguely took in his surroundings, but found he couldn’t really focus on them very much. His head swam alarmingly and the world tilted –

Suddenly, Billy’s strong hands were on his shoulders, holding him upright.

“Hey,” Billy said softly, but the urgency in his voice was enough for Steve to force his brain to focus. “You’re home. You’re in your living room. Let’s just focus on breathing, and then we’ll go upstairs.”

Steve didn’t dare nod, but lightly tapped his hand against his knee to show he was listening.

“That’s it,” Billy said. “Let’s go again. And _in…_ two… three…”

Billy started to repeat the exercise, and Steve honestly didn’t know if he was following it. He just held onto that low, rumbling sound of his voice, talking in tones more gentle than Steve would have ever believed possible a few weeks ago. _God,_ _he needed to get a handle on the passage of time._

Steve didn’t realise his head was leaning on Billy’s chest until he found himself being gently shaken to the sound of his name.

“Steve,” Billy said softly. “Steve, come on, you can’t sleep here.”

Steve gave a weak nod – _big mistake_ – and found himself being hauled to his feet. The whole world swam, but he clung to Billy like an anchor. Billy guided him towards the stairs, before soft instructions detailed to him that he was going to need to start climbing.

“Lift your feet,” Billy said, keeping that low, rumbling sound going. “That’s it, there we go. And another step… there…”

Steve would not have been able to tell anyone how he made it to the top of the stairs. The fall had evidently taken more out of him than he’d thought, finally tipping the pain in his chest to unmanageable heights. Billy was keeping that soft rumbling encouragement going. When he wasn’t guiding him with instructions, he was repeating that same breathing exercise, a soft mantra.

Steve found himself being lowered onto the bed, sinking into the pillows as best he could. They weren’t soft like Steve remembered them from home, but he was used to it now. Billy pulled the blanket over him.

“Please don’t go,” Steve found himself gasping.

Billy gave him a warm smile before settling down on the bed next to him.

“I wasn’t going anywhere, Stevie,” Billy said, resting a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I think it’s time you had some rest. _Proper_ rest.”

Steve felt himself shaking under Billy’s hand. _Had he been shaking all this time?_

“Your… Your hands are cold,” Steve gasped.

“No, _you’re_ just burning up,” Billy said.

Steve pulled the blankets around him tighter.

“Try and get some sleep, Steve,” Billy said softly, looking down at him as he settled against the headrest. “God knows you need it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So prepare for some hurt/comfort bonding going on, guys! I know that's what you're all here for, and let's be honest, I'm here for it too...


	19. Part 2 Chapter 12: Bad Medicine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: instances of sexist slurs. Very minor, but better safe than sorry.

Bed rest… was not going well.

Steve’s eyes cracked open to find Billy sat on the bed beside him with some water. He blinked blearily at him, before feeling a shiver wrack through his body. Just about every part of him ached. He felt like there was something stuck in his throat.

“Hey,” Billy said softly, looking down at him. “How are you feeling?”

Steve gave him a look as an answer. “How long have I been out?”

“A while,” Billy said. “You should probably eat something.”

Steve nodded, seeing the point. His stomach was aching just as much as everywhere else, and he’d become used to the dull ache that came with weeks of not quite getting enough to eat, but there was sense in Billy’s suggestion as it shone a spotlight on that particular protest his body was making.

It turned out it wasn’t just water that Billy had brought to the bedroom. There was also a can of mushroom soup on the bedside table. It was cold – Steve wasn’t expecting Billy to magically keep it warm for however long he’d been asleep – but it was still edible.

He sat up with far more effort than such a simple action should have any right to take, and took a small sip of soup, managing a mouthful, before realising how dry his throat was. Billy saw where he was looking and handed him the cup of water. The first feeling of that cold liquid hitting the back of his throat was like the breath of life, and Steve was instantly reminded of how he’d felt when he’d first found that stream. The sip turned to gulps, desperate, uncontrolled –

“Hey,” Billy said softly. “Hey, easy on that. Little sips, okay? You’re going to make yourself choke.”

Steve closed his eyes as he gave a small nod. He eased up and had a few more sips until his throat felt less like sandpaper.

“There we go,” Billy gave him a warm smile. “Try some more soup.”

Steve managed another mouthful before whatever felt like it was stuck in his throat started to make itself known. He pushed the soup can away from him into Billy’s hands before giving a violent cough. He was left there, coughing and spluttering, but whatever it was refused to shift, and his ribs were hurting – _God, they were hurting…_

When the coughing fit _finally_ subsided, he realised that Billy had a comforting hand on his back, rubbing small circles. It was doing the equivalent of the band-aids Dustin had stuck on his face after his fight with Billy back in November, but Steve appreciated it nonetheless. It was comforting. It made him feel less alone.

Billy pressed the cup of water back into Steve’s hands, and this time, Steve managed not to gulp half of it down in one, taking little sips to ease his aching throat. Once the cup was empty, Billy eased him back down against the pillows.

Steve didn’t try to stop the wash of sleep pass over him.

-:-

The next time Steve woke, Billy was there on the bed beside him. The cup of water had been refilled, the soup was still there, waiting. He still ached all over. His throat felt dry, and this time, Billy didn’t wait to hand him the water.

Steve took smaller sips than he had beforehand, rolling onto his side rather than bothering to sit up fully. Something about the movement, though, aggravated his already protesting lungs. Whatever had been stuck in his throat was still stuck there. He started coughing again, violently trying to expel… _whatever it was_ from his lungs, but again, it wasn’t shifting. He ended up leaning over the edge of the bed, his whole body heaving, feeling like he was going to be sick – _God, he really didn’t want to puke feeling like this…_

Fortunately, it passed, and he realised Billy had a hand on his shoulder to stop him falling completely out of bed.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Steve just managed to gasp out.

Billy nodded, before gently easing Steve back into the bed. Steve really didn’t want to empty his stomach over the bed, he _really_ didn’t want to feel what throwing up was going to feel like with his chest in the state that it was –

The nausea passed. Steve closed his eyes as his head sank into the pillow and allowed himself to drift off.

-:-

When Steve woke next, Billy had taken precautions. A bucket sat by the bed. The water was refilled. The soup can was still there. Most interestingly, his shirt was folded up, clean. Billy must have washed it while he was asleep.

Steve was feeling hot – too hot. He could feel sweat clinging to his face, the sheets clung to him – he pushed the blanket away.

“Hey,” Billy said softly, still keeping vigil in his spot on the bed.

The sudden temperature change made him shiver, and he found himself pulling the blanket back around him, trying to find a happy medium between the two, but if it existed, it wasn’t with the blanket and it _certainly_ wasn’t without it.

Billy’s answer to Steve’s struggles with his body temperature was to hand him that cup of water. Steve momentarily abandoned his quest for the optimal situation, putting up with the shivering as he took a couple of small sips. It helped – at least, enough for Steve to gasp out a few words.

“How long?”

“A while,” Billy said, just as ambiguously as the last time he’d asked that question. Steve expressed his lack of satisfaction at the answer with a glare that he hoped looked annoyed as opposed to just pitiful, though Billy’s face suggested the latter was what he’d actually achieved.

“That was your longest yet,” Billy said. “You should try and eat something.”

Steve didn’t bother to argue as the cup was taken from him and the soup can was pressed into his hand. Billy helped him sit up to try to drink some. His chest protested even the simple action of swallowing, but Billy coaxed him to try another mouthful.

The second mouthful had Steve pressing the can back into Billy’s hands, trying to repress the oncoming inevitable coughing fit. It felt like there wasn’t enough air getting into his lungs, whatever it was that was blocking his airway was still there, he couldn’t –

He doubled over, curled up into himself as he rested his head on his knees, still tangled up in the blanket. He was coughing, but nothing in his chest was shifting – he couldn’t _breathe_ –

_Wait._

Steve barely had time to gesture, but Billy seemed to be intuitive enough to realise what was about to happen, and held the bucket in front of him as the sparse contents of his stomach suddenly expelled themselves. Steve found himself wrapping his arms around the bucket, cradling it close to his chest as he continued to cough up whatever else was still in his stomach. The violent heaving of his body was, if anything, worse than what he’d feared, the movement pressing against his chest and broken ribs. He couldn’t stop the dry retches from wracking his whole body with tremors.

Billy, once again, had a hand on his shoulder and was using his other hand to rub soothing circles into his back as tears sprang into Steve’s eyes.

“It’s okay,” Billy was muttering. “It’s okay. Let’s just try those breathing exercises again. Reckon you can do that for me?”

The honest answer was _no,_ but Steve could see the point in trying.

“In… two… three… hold… _out…_ two… three…”

Steve listened to the mantra being repeated softly, trying to cling onto the sound of Billy’s voice, calming, grounding… He still had his head bent over the bucket, his hair creating a curtain between him and the rest of this hellish nightmare of a world, but slowly his body stopped heaving up whatever it could. Billy kept his mantra going as he pulled the bucket away. He then reached over and picked up the blue top that he’d evidently washed – Steve wasn’t exactly thinking straight, but he definitely remembered more blood on it.

Billy started trying to pull it over his head, and Steve didn’t have the strength, energy or inclination to protest. His pride felt slightly burnt that he couldn’t even be relied upon to dress himself, but he wasn’t in any position to argue as Billy gently coaxed his arms through the short sleeves.

Steve didn’t remember falling back against the cushions and drifting off that time.

-:-

The next time Steve woke up and saw Billy, he was assured that it was _not_, in fact, the next time he’d woken up and seen Billy.

Apparently, he’d woken up twice without remembering. Billy assured him that he hadn’t exactly been lucid in either of those instances, but Billy had tried to coax him into drinking more soup and water, but on both instances had promptly regurgitated them into the bucket.

Not that such instances were an excuse for not trying again.

_Water. Soup. Cough. Pray that the soup stays down. Bow to the inevitable. Sleep. Repeat._

-:-

It was the start of August when Paul Harrington announced his candidacy for Mayor.

Not that it was news to anyone by that point. The wealthiest man in Hawkins had quit his job at a law firm that he had founded, so of _course_ people talked. Rumours started to spread, rumours became facts, and by the time he called a press conference, everyone already knew. Which, granted, had the added bonus of thirty or forty people showing up to listen to his speech.

Linda’s earlier scepticism about Paul’s candidacy had been dispelled by several conversations she’d ended up having with various people in the street. There were plenty of people who were angry with Kline and everything he represented, particularly following his arrest. Paul, while not quite a removal from the elitist system that Kline had so blatantly abused for his own gain, had suddenly gained a sympathetic image; someone who had lost just as much as anyone in Starcourt.

The campaign manager Paul had hired encouraged him to use this newly discovered image. It was his greatest asset.

Paul was hesitant as he walked up to the podium, feeling strangely nervous. He didn’t remember being quite so nervous about anything in _years._ A hush fell over the assembled reporters and spectators. He looked down at his speech, at the opening few words. He had to do this.

_For Steven._

“Last month,” Paul said into the microphone, trying not to flinch as the words reverberated around the space and came straight back at him, “this town suffered a terrible tragedy. On the day that we were meant to be gathered to celebrate our Founding Fathers and the birth of this proud nation, several members of our community were trapped in Starcourt Mall as it burned to the ground. Thirty people died that day. Friends, colleagues, families, children. Including my own son.

“Since that day, information has come to light about _why_ such a tragedy was allowed to occur. The people who run this town allowed the mall to be built to standards that were _far_ lower than what any reasonable regulator would approve, with blood money lining the pockets of those who approved it. Starcourt was a tragedy _waiting_ to happen.

“But Starcourt is only the _latest_ tragedy to occur. In the last three years, we have seen our first missing persons case in sixty years. Our first suicide in twenty-two years. Two people have tragically lost their lives due to the Hawkins Laboratory, and still the people responsible are yet to face justice. Our town isn’t safe anymore, our _children_ are not safe anymore. Starcourt is the latest in a long line of problems, and proof that under the current establishment, things are only getting _worse._

“Which is why I am announcing today that I am running for Mayor. I will divert funding to our emergency services, expand our police force, and increase oversight into these departments to ensure that _nothing _like this tragedy ever happens again. Together, we will make Hawkins _safe_ once again.”

The cameras flashed, as to be expected. The conclusion of the speech was drowned out in a babble of questions from the reporters, and, perhaps most notably, the gathered spectators began to applaud.

-:-

Steve awoke to Billy’s vacant stare out the window.

“How long?” Steve asked. A question to indicate that he was vaguely close to lucid.

“A while,” Billy said vacantly. “There’s been another Gate.”

Steve blinked, before trying to push himself up. If there was a _Gate_ –

“_Whoah_, hold on,” Billy said, pressing a hand against his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“You said there’s a Gate,” Steve gasped, his voice hoarse. “We should go-”

“Steve, it’s _closed,_” Billy said. “And you can’t go _chasing Gates down,_ not like this.”

“Well, how the hell _else_ am I supposed to get better?” Steve rasped. He tried to push himself up again, but Billy’s hand remained firm on his shoulder.

“Steve, look at yourself,” Billy breathed. “You can barely get out of bed. I don’t want to watch you kill yourself doing something stupid, pushing yourself beyond what you can handle.”

There… was an annoying amount of truth in that. Far too much truth in it to ignore. Steve finally gave up his fight against Billy’s hand – though calling it a _‘fight’_ was putting it generously – and sagged back into the cushions. Tears were pricking at his eyes. He tried turning away from Billy so he wouldn’t see, but Billy was evidently so unconvinced by it that he put an arm around him and pulled Steve closer against him. Steve turned his head and rested it against Billy’s leg, burying his face into the filthy, ruined denim.

“I want to go home,” Steve gasped.

“I know,” Billy rubbed a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I know.”

Billy adjusted himself so he was closer to reclining on the bed, still propped up on cushions, but slightly closer to Steve. Steve found himself resting his head on Billy’s abdomen, listening to the slow, calming breaths, feeling the rise and fall of Billy’s chest.

“If there’s another Gate,” Steve muttered. “Wake me up. _Please,_ Billy, I don’t care. I don’t want to die here.”

“You’re not going to die,” Billy said reassuringly. “I won’t let that happen.”

Steve couldn’t help the soft noise of amusement that, if he had been feeling stronger, might have been a laugh. “Don’t know if _either_ of us have much of a say in that.”

“Steve,” Billy looked down at him, his blue eyes meeting with Steve’s brown gaze, a seriousness in both his voice and his eyes. “I _promise _you; I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you alive. But you _can’t_ give up.”

Steve wished he could believe him, but he settled his head back against Billy’s chest. He didn’t remember drifting off.

-:-

Joyce gave a soft knock on the office door. It was earlier than she usually stopped by, but things were relatively quiet. The most exciting thing going on in Hawkins was the Mayoral race, but there were no events, speeches, or debates scheduled for that day.

Hopper looked up at her knock, his face splitting into a wide smile.

“Joyce,” he said happily. He walked up to the door and closed it, leaning back against the wall as he drew the blind down. He closed the space between them, but Joyce took a fraction of a step back.

“Hop,” she gave a soft laugh.

“Well, why are you surprising me at work, then?” Hopper said, but there was a glint of humour in his eyes as he inched back.

Joyce leant back and perched on Hopper’s desk. “You might be very interested in the conversation I had with the boys last night,” she said, smirking at him.

“Oh?” Hopper’s eyebrows shot up, and he injected a bit of humour into his tone. “It wasn’t about _me,_ was it?”

“Actually, it _was_ about you.”

“Oh yeah? Were you gossiping about me?”

Joyce nodded, a smirk settling on her face. “Oh, yes. We were up all night talking about how ugly your _clothes_ were, how you got with _Sandy Stone_ in seventh grade, how-”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Hopper held up a hand. “What did you _actually_ talk about?”

Joyce’s smile morphed into a more genuine one. “Well, I told them that you and I had been on a couple of dates.”

Hopper looked surprised at that. Joyce had been clear from the start that she would date Hopper on the strict understanding that the dates would not lead into late nights, or either of them staying over, until she had told Jonathan and Will. She had also been very clear that she was not going to _tell_ Jonathan and Will unless she thought there was something real there.

“That’s… a big step,” Hopper said. “How did they take it?”

Joyce shrugged. “Will took it pretty well, actually. He likes you, and more importantly, he _trusts _you. He’s happy for me – _genuinely_ happy. He normally puts on a polite smile, but I _know_ when he’s _really_ happy, and this is one of those times.”

Hopper couldn’t help but smile at that. “And Jonathan?”

“Jonathan’s… well… He’s _Jonathan,_” Joyce’s tone changed a fraction. “He’s always really protective, he doesn’t like _anyone_ I date, for no other reason than because I’m dating them. He’s a bit like an overprotective father, only _I’m_ the adult. I’m not looking forward to the day _Will_ gets a girlfriend, I might need to put Jonathan on a leash. But, if it’s any consolation, he was less unimpressed with you than he was with Bob when they first met.”

Hopper… didn’t really know what to do with that information.

“Anyway, that’s not all we talked about,” Joyce said, suddenly business-like. “You know you mentioned that assistant job?”

“Uh – yeah – Flo’s retiring,” Hopper said, caught slightly off-guard.

“Well,” Joyce said slowly, a smile spreading across her face. “Is it still available?”

-:-

Paul’s busy week was interrupted by an invitation.

There was going to be a memorial at Hawkins High School for the three students – _former_ students – who had lost their lives at Starcourt. Students and their families were invited, and a special invitation had been extended to the families of those lost. Of course, Billy Hargrove’s family now seemed to consist of his stepmother and stepsister, and Heather Holloway’s family had _all_ been killed in the accident, so by far the most meaningful invitation had been extended to Paul and Linda.

Paul was supposed to be canvassing that day, but his campaign manager had instructed him to go, given that it was free publicity, and, frankly, played very nicely into the image of the grieving parent. That said, Paul was less than convinced that he needed another memorial to his late son. A battle of wills ensued, which ultimately resulted in where Paul was currently sat – on the front row of an assembly, wearing a black tie and a suitably sombre expression while the principal was saying words about “loss” and “coming together as a community”.

It sounded like one of his pre-written campaign speeches.

There was a surprisingly good turnout to the memorial, given that it was the middle of the summer holidays. Most of the recently graduated senior year were present, as well as a healthy proportion of the junior year, and a smattering of sophomores and even the odd freshman. The basketball team were present – with Steven having been the captain and Billy Hargrove the star player, it wasn’t altogether surprising – but it was still nice to see. Not too far away from them was another group of people who Heather must have been involved with. Paul cast his mind back to the last time he’d had a proper conversation with Tom about Heather, but it must have been _years_ ago. _Maybe she had been a cheerleader?_

The principal finally stopped speaking – _thank God _– and handed over to the school’s basketball coach. Paul started trying to pay attention again – he supposed he could be forgiven for drifting off during the generic condolences the principal had spouted, but the coach was a different entity altogether. The coach had worked closely with Steven over his four years in high school. There was a chance that whatever he might have to say might _mean_ something.

Paul was, however, disappointed. The coach started talking about how Billy and Steven were wonderful athletes… assets to the team… pillars of the community… which was why the school was retiring their numbers.

_That was unexpected._

The school had mentioned to him that there would be an opportunity for him to say a few words if he so desired, but he’d had no idea that _this_ was what was going to happen.

They invited a representative of Billy Hargrove’s family onstage. A redheaded girl went up and accepted a folded blue t-shirt. Paul had to assume that the girl was Billy Hargrove’s stepsister. The principal bent down to ask her something, but she shook her head and walked off the stage as quickly as possible. Paul tried not to be too obvious as he watched her – just about every eye in the room was on her as she tried to slip back into anonymity. She went back to a woman who Paul could only assume was her mother, who was sat with a few other children about the girl’s age. He saw a few familiar faces near them, too – Nancy Wheeler was there, sat with Jonathan Byers, and there was also that girl who had come to help Linda clear out Steven’s room. Somehow, they knew each other, they were all close, which was odd, given that Billy Hargrove had definitely not been a _friend _to Steven –

He was distracted by his own invitation to the stage. Much like the girl must have experienced, he could practically _feel_ every eye in the room on him as he walked up. He didn’t remember making it onto the stage, he was only dimly aware of the blue fabric being handed to him. He looked down, and finally, the number came into focus. He read the name _Harrington_ neatly spread across the back above the number 12. Paul felt a twist in his gut as he looks up at the principal, who softly asked him if he’d like to say a few words.

A small nod was all he could manage. He walked up to the microphone.

“Thank you,” he said quietly to the principal, but the words were picked up by the microphone. He turned towards the assembled audience. “Thank you all for coming today. I know that Steven would have appreciated it, as I’m sure Billy and Heather would have.

“The truth is,” Paul continued. “There’s nothing else to say about my son that hasn’t already been said. I’m sure you all knew him, in your own ways, either as the captain of the basketball team, or as a friend, or as a classmate, or even just someone you passed in the corridor. I’m sure _all_ of you knew him as _Steve_ rather than Steven.”

A slightly awkward echo of a laugh sounded in the room. He wasn’t quite so ignorant to his son’s choice of nickname, but old habits died hard, especially when Paul was hardly around to correct them.

“The truth is that this shouldn’t have happened,” Paul continued. “Neither Steven, nor Billy, nor Heather, nor any of the twenty-seven others should have been caught up in that tragedy. But the people responsible, the people with blood on their hands will face justice. And I will do _everything _I can to make this town safe again, and it will be for them-”

Paul’s voice cracked slightly. Not enough to be noticed on its own, but enough for Paul to catch himself and swallow.

“It will be for _him._”

Paul hadn’t quite intended for the speech to turn political, but perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing. Almost all of the seniors would be old enough to vote in the Mayoral election. As he walked off the stage, though, he caught a glimpse of Nancy Wheeler glaring at him. He looked away, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw her slip out of the room.

-:-

Nancy heard footsteps behind her as she stormed down the hall. She ignored them though, if anything speeding up because the _last_ thing she needed was Jonathan trying to calm her down.

She didn’t _want_ to be calm. _Everyone_ wanted her to be calm. But if she was _calm,_ she was pretending. Pretending that she wasn’t angry – or upset – or pretending that she could sit quietly and respectfully listen to all that fucking _bullshit._

Pretending never worked. She’d learnt that the hard way with Barb.

“Running away _again,_ Princess?”

The nickname stopped her in her tracks just as much as the voice. She wheeled around to find _Tommy fucking Hagan_ glaring at her.

“I saw you run out of Steve’s funeral,” Tommy said snidely. “Didn’t think you’d have it in you to do it _again._”

“What the _fuck_ do you want, Tommy?”

“Just drop the _fucking_ act,” Tommy snapped. “Get off your self-righteous high horse and actually accept the _truth_ for once.”

Nancy gave him a derisive glare before turning back around.

“You know, I _warned_ Steve about you,” Tommy said at her back. “I warned him that you were just a self-serving bitch and a _slut_ to boot. But he didn’t see it. And look where it got him. You got him to ditch his friends before _you_ ditched him for that fucking _creep_, and now you’re walking out on his funeral, and going along to any fucking memorial just to walk out on that _too._ Some fucking _girlfriend_ you were.”

Nancy spun around again, giving him the filthiest look she could muster. “You want to talk about _acts?_” she hissed. “What about _you?_ You didn’t give a _shit _about him. The _second_ Billy showed up, you were there, laying into him like he was shit on your _goddamn shoe!_ You call that _friendship?_ You didn’t give a shit about Steve, or Billy, or _anyone_ but yourself, you were just trying to shit on _everyone_ else around you!”

“You think I didn’t _care?_” Tommy snarled. “Where the fuck were _you_ when his dad nearly cut him off? Oh – _that’s_ right – off playing _reporter_ with your creep boyfriend. And let’s not forget who _else_ was in that tragedy… was it your boss’ entire family, or was it another reporter?”

“What the _fuck_ are you saying, Tommy?”

“I’m _saying_ you’ve got blood on your hands, just as much as _anyone,_” Tommy said. “You left them all to die.”

“_That’s not – _You have _no idea_ what it was like, Tommy, you weren’t _there!_”

“No, you’re right, I _wasn’t_,” Tommy said. “But _you _were. And so was _Steve,_ and _Billy,_ and Heather. And now they’re _not_. Two of the people I counted my best friend at one point or another are _gone_. So don’t you fucking _dare_ tell me that _‘I don’t care!’_”

Nancy fell silent at this glaring at Tommy.

“I’m going back inside,” Tommy said. “Stop pretending you’re so fucking _perfect._ And learn some fucking _respect._”

-:-

Linda and Paul stood in the dining room, the front page of a newspaper spread across the mahogany table. Paul’s campaign manager, a man called David Hartness from Indianapolis, was talking at them as they looked down at the headline, giving them a brief rundown of the week’s events in the six days since Paul’s candidacy was announced.

“As you can see, you’re very lucky,” David was saying. “You’ve managed to get the Hawkins Post on your side. Not exactly _surprising,_ given that they lost their editor-in-chief, his entire family and a journalist in the Starcourt Tragedy, but it’s still a good thing. It’s the most respected local paper. The local radio stations are picking up on you, too. People like you, Paul. They _relate_ to you. Not exactly a small feat given that you’re sitting in a tax bracket all of your own here in Hawkins. Just keep playing up the whole _fixing-the-town-after-the-death-of-your-son _angle and you’ll win by a landslide.”

Which epitomised exactly why Linda despised David.

David was one of the best campaign managers in the state. He’d been present on the current Mayor of Indianapolis’ campaign trail since his election in ’76, taking the lead on last year’s election which had seen him redefine the term ‘landslide.’ He’d even consulted on two senate runs, and Paul was paying a small fortune to have him on the team.

However, that didn’t mean that Linda had to _like_ the man.

Evidently, Paul felt the same way, as the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees as Paul refused to look at David with a cold word.

“It’s not an _angle,_” Paul said in an icy monotone. “My son _did_ die. This town _does_ need fixing.”

Even more annoyingly, these words seemed to _please_ David.

“I know,” he said, sounding infuriatingly satisfied. “And that’s what’s so _great_ about you, Paul. You _believe _it. It’s all _true._ You’ve got _integrity._ You’re tapping into those homegrown family values that play _so well_ in a town like this. It only goes so far in a big city like Indianapolis, but _here…_ You can’t fake that, Paul. It’s gold dust. And it _shows_ – hold on…”

Linda was doing everything in her power not to roll her eyes extremely pointedly and obviously at David’s words, and had to repress a small laugh at Paul’s almost imperceptible shake of the head as David went and foraged in his briefcase before finding a sheet of paper. He put the paper down on the table, smoothing it out.

“We’re taking daily approval ratings,” David said. “Your main rival is Harry Beaumont. He was basically Kline’s second-in-command; he was on the town council for almost as long as Kline. He’s a career politician in a small town, and is the current acting Mayor. His greatest asset is his experience, but the flipside of that is that he represents everything that went wrong with Starcourt. He’s a politician with a capital P, and that’s how people _see_ him. Until your speech at the high school yesterday, his approval rating was just on this side of a majority, but _after_ that, it dropped _below _yours, which is incredibly unusual this early in a campaign with a completely new candidate who’s never been in politics before. You’ve got the debate coming up after the weekend, so use that to your advantage. Use how he represents everything you want to get the town away from. _That’s_ what people are responding to.”

Linda didn’t succeed in suppressing an eyeroll quite as successfully this time round. She was tired of listening to scheming – _strategizing,_ she corrected mentally. She decided to leave Paul and David to it, walking back into the living room. She switched on the television and started listening to the news.

The headline was the latest events in a plane crash in Dallas-Fort Worth. No new information, it was simply the case that the reporters hadn’t yet got bored of talking in circles about it. Linda was happy for it to be background noise as she poured herself a glass of wine. It had been a long day.

_“In local news in Indiana, former Mayor of Hawkins Lawrence Kline has pleaded guilty to six counts of corruption following the gas explosion at Starcourt Mall-”_

Linda’s head snapped up. She gave the television her full attention.

_“-which killed thirty people. Today in court, Kline pleaded guilty to all counts of corruption, admitting that he knew that Starcourt Industries was building the mall to standards far below state regulations, and that he was paid money to allow the work to go ahead-”_

Linda rushed back towards the door she’d just exited, interrupting David mid-sentence. Which, of course, was _such_ a shame.

“Paul,” she said urgently. “You need to see this.”

-:-

Steve wasn’t sure if he’d actually been asleep when he was next aware of Billy.

Billy was ready with the water when he realised that Steve was looking at him. It was routine. But it couldn’t change the fact that Steve was getting worse.

The one good thing bed rest seemed to have done was heal up his hand – for the most part. His nails were still gone, leaving Steve to wonder if they’d ever grow back, and his little finger was probably never going to be straight again, but it wasn’t hurting anymore. His finger was still stiff to move, but it didn’t send fresh jolts of pain lancing through his hand at the slightest movement. Of course, that might have had something to do with the lack of his own ability to move it.

Unfortunately, the rest of Steve was deteriorating. His head felt heavier than it had any right to be. Billy had now simply taken to feeding Steve the water, holding his head and tilting it upwards when Steve was aware of himself enough to swallow. Sweat clung to Steve’s face, but he didn’t have the _energy_ to do anything anymore. His breathing sounded closer to a death rattle than anything else.

-:-

Paul waited patiently with a smirk on his face for Harry Beaumont to finish answering yet another question about Kline’s recent guilty plea. It was a stock answer, one he’d been giving variants on since the start of the debate. Judging by the atmosphere in the room every time Beaumont opened his mouth, it was _not_ a stock answer that was playing well.

The reporter who had asked the latest question was relentless. Paul was certain that he recognised the reporter from the Hawkins Post, which explained why this particular set of questions were going in his favour.

“Mr Beaumont, could you please explain to me your involvement in former Mayor Kline’s decision to award Starcourt Industries the contract?”

“As I said before, I agreed with the initial proposal to build the mall. Starcourt Industries’ proposal was incredibly coherent, and there was nothing in their suggested budget that would normally indicate substandard safety measures.”

“But did you look over the plans?”

“Not personally, no.”

Paul couldn’t contain his grin at that. The entire ‘debate’ had been far less a debate and far _more_ an inquisition of Harry Beaumont. Paul wasn’t averse to this, either from a political or a personal standpoint. The reporters were taking down Beaumont, and all he had to do was stand back and throw the occasional scathing comment into the mix.

“You see, I find that interesting,” Paul said into his microphone. “I don’t believe for a second that former Mayor Kline would have made this decision on his own, and even if he _did_, he absolutely should _not _have been. Which makes the rest of the council one of three things: ignorant, incompetent, or involved. Which one are _you,_ Mr Beaumont?”

-:-

Steve realised he could hardly breathe. This wasn’t exactly a _new_ sensation, he’d been feeling something build up in his lungs, and he vaguely tried to gesture towards Billy that he needed to cough.

Billy, who seemed to have learnt how to read every single one of Steve’s micromovements, started to ease Steve upright. He grabbed the bucket – on the rare occasions that Steve _did_ sit up to cough, it was always more useful to have a safety measure.

Steve was leaning heavily on Billy’s side as he was being held upright, as he started to cough into the bucket.

-:-

“The fact remains, Mr Beaumont, that this tragedy could have been avoided if _any_ member of the council had looked over the plans _properly_,” Paul said, his voice rising. “The blueprints are a matter of public record. Anyone with even the _slightest_ knowledge of the building regulations in this state would have been able to notice that there were faults in the building from the start. Anyone with even the slightest ounce of _integrity_ would, upon noticing those faults, have forbidden it from going ahead.”

-:-

Steve’s body was in agony as he forced himself to cough. Every single inch of his chest protested the violent movement, but he couldn’t avoid it, he couldn’t _breathe –_

-:-

“You have _blood _on your hands, Mr Beaumont. Blood of thirty innocent people of this town. Including the blood of my son.”

-:-

Something shifted in Steve’s chest. Another cough finally brought whatever it was to his lips. The coughs started to subside, and Steve felt exhausted, hunched over the bucket, a metallic taste lining his mouth.

-:-

Winnie Kline didn’t immediately get out of the car as she pulled into her driveway. The moon was high in the sky. She’d started doing most of her shopping one town over since it had been made painfully apparent that she was now a pariah in Hawkins. All because Larry had taken a bribe.

She wasn’t sure whether she was prepared to stand by him as he went to jail. His lawyers had encouraged him to plead guilty after he’d been denied bail in a hope of reducing his sentence. Apparently, the evidence the DA had against him was overwhelming. Winnie wasn’t sure if she was prepared to wait that long for a man who had ruined so many lives.

She’d never questioned where the money came from. She never knew the exact salary the Mayor of a town like Hawkins earned. If there was an extra influx of cash, she wouldn’t have any way to know.

She finally got out of her car, slowly getting her shopping out of her trunk. It might have had something to do with the fact that everyone in the town clearly hated her, but the silence all around her was eerie.

She closed the trunk and started walking towards the house. The porch light was still on, chasing away the shadows from her front door. Again, it could well have had something to do with the general hatred towards her, but her unease at being in Hawkins was making her feel like she was being watched.

She reached into her bag and tried to find her keys. She could have sworn that they had a mind of their own, hiding in her bag –

Something rustled in the bushes.

She turned around, her sense of unease heightened to a full state of fear. Her heart was racing.

“Hello?” she called out.

Nothing.

_It was just the wind,_ she told herself. _It was just the wind_…

She turned back to her bag, finally spotting the keys. She pulled them out of her bag, turning towards the door –

Something moved in her peripheral vision. She turned towards it just in time to see a monstrous face, before a wave of red clouded her vision. The feeling of something cold splashed over her as she closed her eyes with a scream.

Her eyes cracked open to see a silhouette of a figure running down the street. Her heart was racing. Red was dripping from her hair. She looked down at her hands to see them covered in blood, and started to scream.

-:-

Colonel Ozerov was not impressed as he got off the helicopter.

The place was falling apart in his absence. It had been waiting for his return, for him to come back and confirm the success of his mission. By all accounts, it had failed. The base had been compromised – _by a couple of teenagers, no less_ – and the American Gate had been destroyed. However, there was more at play than simply _opening_ the Gate.

He was met by a young soldier as he approached the door.

“Is everything set?” Ozerov asked.

“Yes sir. We followed your instructions exactly. We are ready if you think it is enough.”

“Let us hope that it is.”

He followed the soldier into a room so very similar to the one he had tried so hard to build in America. The one he had succeeded in building. The one they had _failed_ to replicate here.

But that was all about to change. His soldiers had made efforts. If a key could only open a Gate at a certain hole, then they simply needed to drill another hole. It was far easier to create a tunnel from both sides.

Of course, things had gone wrong in America. Two teenagers in ice cream uniforms had preluded the arrival of the traitor and his new friends. Fortunately, the traitor was dead. He could only hope that his soldiers had done enough on the other side.

Two scientists finally emerged onto the observation deck. They looked down at the enormous machine that stood before them. A machine that they had spent months rebuilding and improving. The scientists lined up beside two podiums, identical keys in hand.

“Go,” Ozerov said.

The scientists turned the keys.

The machine started to whir into life. The room was filled with a bright light as a white beam shot towards the wall. A crack started to appear in the rock.

The light started to take on a red tint as the crack grew and widened. Almost everyone on the observation deck flinched, but Ozerov stared, naked excitement on his face.

Suddenly, there was a huge sound like thunder as another bright white beam blasted back through the Gate. The others did not know, but Ozerov did – he had built another key, another _drill_ beyond the Gate, slightly weaker, in the place that they wanted a Gate to be. If this _worked…_

There was a sound like lightning striking the ground, and Ozerov _knew._

He knew that sound, it was the same sound the Gate in America had made. No sirens blared. They were _through._

The Russians had a way back to America.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're into the endgame of part 2 guys!!! We're almost halfway there!!!
> 
> You were warned this was going to be a long story...


	20. Part 2 Chapter 13: A Monster Mask

Steve may or may not have been awake already, but the noise jolted him back into lucidity.

He was dreaming, he _had _to be. It was too quiet, too impossible… He was dreaming, or he’d imagined it, or he was hallucinating.

That said, if he was hallucinating, his mind was really committed to the bit because Billy was looking around like he’d heard it too.

_“Steven…”_

There it was again. A voice – completely disembodied – broken up, weak, clouded, like it was coming through a radio that was just out of range.

“Mom?” Steve finally gasped out, looking around.

Billy’s head snapped towards Steve, noticing he was awake. Not just awake. _Moving. Talking._

Steve wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had been able to manage actual words as opposed to indistinct noises of protest, but judging by the look on Billy’s face, it had been a while. Still, he was _sure_ that was his mom’s voice. He tried to push himself up – he didn’t feel like he had the strength, but he _had_ to get up, that was his _mom._

“Hey, hey, hey!” Billy said, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

“That’s my _mom,_” Steve rasped. _God, his voice sounded dreadful._

“Steve, come on, you’re _sick,_” Billy stressed. “You’re _really_ sick-”

“I don’t care,” Steve rasped. “I want to see her.”

“Steve, come on, she’s not _here,_” Billy said.

“Then why-” Steve broke off to take a breath, “-can I hear her?”

Billy didn’t have an immediate answer to that. He walked over to the window and looked out.

“There’s another Gate,” Billy breathed.

Steve glanced at the window. Nothing was quite staying still, but Steve didn’t need it to stay still to be able to see a complete absence of any red light in the sky that would indicate a Gate.

“No there isn’t,” he gasped.

“Not here,” Billy said. “Somewhere else.”

“How do you-”

Billy turned around and looked at Steve. “Do you remember what you told me?” he asked urgently. “You told me that the Russians opened up a Gate in Hawkins. They built Starcourt Mall to cover it up. What if they’ve opened a Gate in Russia?”

Steve’s eyes widened. “Can they _do_ that?”

“Maybe,” Billy said. “If the Gate is far enough away that we can’t see it, it’s possible it’s in Russia.”

Steve looked at Billy blearily. “Okay,” he murmured. “How do we find it?”

“What?”

“The Gate’s in Russia, how do we _find_ it?”

“Steve, we can’t go to Russia,” Billy pointed out.

“Billy,” Steve looked at him imploringly. Tears started to form in his eyes. Something about hearing his mom’s voice had driven home to him something he’d desperately been trying to avoid. “Look at me. I’ve not… I’ve not got long left. I _know_ we can’t go to Russia. But if there’s a _Gate_ out there somewhere, I want to _try._ I told you, I _don’t _want to die here. Even if it’s impossible, even if it fails, even if I don’t even make it down the goddamn _stairs,_ I want to try.”

Something in Billy’s eyes looked broken. The calm, collected mask that Steve had come to rely upon so much cracked, revealing a flash of how completely _devastated_ Billy was.

“_Please,_ Billy,” Steve said. “Please.”

Billy continued to look at him with that same _devastated _look. He pressed his lips together as the muscles around his eyes tightened. Billy closed his eyes for a fraction longer than a standard blink. With his eyes still closed, he finally spoke.

“Starcourt,” Billy said, as though every single word he said hurt as it was torn from his lips. “The Russians built the mall. If we’re right, there might be a clue there about where the Russians would open a Gate.”

Steve gave him a small smile. “Let’s go.”

Billy helped Steve sit up on the edge of the bed. Steve was under no delusion that he was going to be able to walk properly – Billy was probably going to end up carrying him most of the way there, but it was enough that he was even going to be able to try and come along. Billy walked over to where the guns were leaning against the wall and made to pick one up.

“No,” Steve rasped in protest as he saw him go for the gun.

Billy looked back at him. “What?”

“Flamethrower,” Steve looked pointedly at the weapon next to the gun Billy was trying to pick up.

Billy looked at him incredulously, like he couldn’t quite believe that _this_ was what Steve was worried about right now. Steve gave him a small shrug.

“Worked better last time,” Steve managed.

Billy shook his head before grabbing the strap of the flamethrower and slinging it over his shoulder. He then silently walked over to Steve and slipped an arm around him.

“Ready?” Billy asked.

Steve managed a small nod. It was taking most of his energy to continue to sit upright, and if he was honest with himself, he was slightly dreading the prospect of moving, but he’d meant what he’d said – he didn’t want to die here, and if he was _going_ to die, he would much rather die whilst trying to find out whatever was happening with the Gate.

Billy nodded. “On three. One… two… _three!_”

Steve let out an agonised, broken cry as Billy finally hauled him to his feet.

-:-

Hopper almost made it to Joyce’s after supervising the debate. Almost_._

It was _supposed_ to be a romantic night. El was having a sleepover at Max’s, while Will and Jonathan had gone to have their own sleepovers at the Wheelers’ place. Their own _completely separate_ sleepovers.

Which, of course, had left the opportunity for Joyce and Hopper to have a sleepover of their own.

He had just pulled up to the driveway when his radio burst into life.

_“Chief? Come in, Chief.”_

Hopper felt a certain resignation as he picked up the radio. He didn’t immediately answer. He looked imploringly at the door, the warm light illuminating the porch.

“Yeah, Cal, what is it?” Hopper finally answered.

_“Chief, we’ve got reports of an incident at the Kline residence.”_

Oh, _screw that._

…Wait. No. This was his job.

“Oh yeah?” Hopper said, hoping his tone indicated that he was prepared to come for nothing less than a home invasion.

_“Yeah, some punk attacked Winnie Kline on her doorstep. Threw a bucket of animal blood all over her or something.”_

That… was a new one.

Hopper probably shouldn’t have been surprised. The Mayoral race was stirring up a lot of anger that would probably have been better left _un-_stirred, and Paul Harrington was definitely using it to his advantage. Kline was definitely the primary target, but there was a certain amount of incitement towards Harry Beaumont, for obvious reasons, as well as a few others. Hopper was pretty sure he himself would have been in the crosshairs if it hadn’t been for a tactical manoeuvre on Harrington’s part. Over the weekend, Harrington had stopped by for a conversation with him which was not at all to Hopper’s taste.

_Paul Harrington walked into his office while Hopper was busy reading over some papers. It was an itinerary for the debate after the weekend which had been dropped on his desk by Flo that morning. She was due to retire in the next few weeks – all that was left for her to do was to dot the ‘I’s and cross the ‘T’s on Joyce’s new appointment. In the meantime, Hopper was left reading and rereading this schedule, and he could swear that he could feel the words just walking out of his brain. Fortunately, Harrington provided a suitable distraction._

_“Chief Hopper,” he said. “I was wondering if I might have a word.”_

_His words were perfectly cordial, but there was no geniality, no warmth to his tone. Hopper felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise._

_Still, it meant not familiarising himself with that bloody itinerary for five minutes._

_Hopper nodded, gesturing at the seat in front of him. “What can I do for you, Mr Harrington?”_

_Harrington took a seat. Even on weekends, Harrington still wore a suit that cost more than what some families spent on their car. Though, granted, that may have had something to do with the campaign trail._

_“Chief Hopper, I wanted to talk about my mayoral candidacy. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but a key point in my manifesto is an increase in funding towards the local police service. That promise would carry a lot more credibility if you were to publicly endorse my campaign.”_

_Hopper looked at Harrington, scrutinising every inch of him. Those grey eyes were measuring him up just as much, a look that carried a searching quality while giving nothing away. Hopper couldn’t help but appreciate that Harrington must have been an excellent lawyer – and one hell of a poker player._

_“Mr Harrington, do you need to agree with a campaign in order to endorse it?”_

_This drew the tiniest hint of emotion from Harrington, a flash of anger that was quickly stifled. “What do you mean?”_

_“I _mean _I’m not sure I agree with your policies.”_

_A cold, hard smile settled on Harrington’s face. “What is there not to agree with?” he asked, his voice like ice. “Your police department gets upgraded equipment, more staff, increased hours for those that want them, not to mention better pay.”_

_“And what about the bit about increased oversight?” Hopper asked._

_Harrington’s glare, if possible, hardened. “Oversight is necessary, Chief Hopper, I apologize if you can’t see that. The people who have run this town have been, at best, incompetent, turning a blind eye to further incompetency that has reached an unacceptable level. Not a single member of the council can answer the question of what exactly your department was doing following the deaths of Benny Hammond and Barbara Holland. Even your successes, like finding Will Byers in the woods two years ago, are woefully unaccounted for. I’m not saying that you didn’t do all you could in _any_ of these cases, but with greater oversight, the people in charge can help you. We can give you what you need if something is simply beyond your ability, but we need to _know. _We need to know where you struggle, so that if there _is _something else we can do, from providing updated radios to bringing in the National Guard, we can do that to keep this town _safe._”_

_Hopper matched Harrington’s cold look. “That’s a very elegant argument, Mr Harrington, but in _my _experience, when politicians get involved in police business, what usually happens is that more people end up getting hurt.”_

_The flash of anger was back in Harrington’s eyes, but this time, it didn’t go away so quickly. “Then tell me, Chief Hopper, why exactly did my son die?”_

_Hopper was taken aback by the sudden removal of the veil between their words in this conversation. And Hopper couldn’t pretend that he had a legitimate answer to that question._

_“You told me that my son saved your life. You now have a chance to start making amends for that.”_

_“Look, Mr Harrington, spare me the bullshit,” Hopper said. “You’ve got everyone else in this town fooled with your bullshit about how you’re doing this for Steve, but stop using him as a political talking point. I _knew _the kid, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want that. I know you guys had a difficult relationship. I know you weren’t close.”_

_Harrington’s eyebrows shot up at Hopper’s audacity. The flash of anger in his eyes was burning bright, but everything about his demeanour was icy. Hopper could almost imagine a cold breeze wafting through the room._

_“You’re right, Chief Hopper,” Harrington said coldly. “My son and I _didn’t _have the best of relationships. I wanted the best for him, and he didn’t see that. But you’re wrong about one thing. _Everything _I’m doing now is for him.”_

Hopper pulled up outside the Kline residence – though _mansion _was probably a more appropriate word for it. A single police car was parked outside. Hopper walked up the path towards the door, but slowed to a halt at the sight that greeted him on the doorstep.

A huge splash of blood was soaked into the stone. It had splattered onto the door, which was now ajar. Hopper slipped on a pair of gloves and tried his best to dodge around the bloodstain, careful not to touch any of the blood on the door as he pushed it open.

He was greeted by Powell giving him a small nod as he stood over a distraught-looking Winnie Kline. She’d clearly not had a chance to shower properly as red was still soaked into her hair, but there were signs that she’d tried to get as much blood off her hands and face as possible. She looked up at him as he entered, before practically screaming at him.

“_Finally,_” she snapped, sounding hysterical. “Where have you _been? _I’ve been _waiting _for you for _forty minutes!_”

“Mrs Kline, I’m sure you’ve been in very good hands with Officer Powell-”

“I was _attacked on my doorstep!_” she all but screamed. “I had _blood_ thrown over me! I’ve been-”

She broke off, choking up on a sob. Hopper turned towards Powell, looking slightly bewildered by the reception. Powell walked over to him as Winnie flopped down onto a chair and buried her face in her hands.

“…_What_ happened?” Hopper asked Powell quietly.

“She says someone in a monster mask was hiding in the bushes when she got home and jumped out and threw blood all over her,” Powell said. “If you ask me, it’s probably a reprisal for Starcourt.”

Hopper agreed, until one tiny detail filtered through his already saturated brain –

“Wait, you said a _monster _mask, what _kind_ of mask?”

Given everything Hopper had experienced, he was not about to take the mention of monsters lightly.

“I don’t know, Chief, it was some kind of Halloween mask,” Powell said. “Like I said, it was probably some punk kid upset about Starcourt. That Harrington guy has everyone whipped up into a frenzy, I’m surprised there hasn’t been an angry mob come down here.”

“Not funny, Cal.”

Hopper ignored Powell’s exaggerated eye roll and walked over to Winnie as she sat on an armchair. He put on his gentlest tone as he crouched down beside her.

“Hey,” Hopper said. “You said someone in a _mask_ did this to you… what _kind_ of mask?”

Winnie finally peeled her face away from her hands, relieved that at least _one _person was taking this as seriously as she felt it deserved. “I don’t know,” she hiccoughed. “It was dark, and I didn’t get a good look.”

“That’s okay,” Hopper said softly. “We’ll work with what we’ve got.”

“Well… it was one of those rubber masks,” Winnie said. “Like the ones you get at Halloween. It might have been a werewolf mask or something.”

“So it had a _face?_” Hopper asked.

Winnie looked at him incredulously. “What? – _Yes, _it had a face!” she snapped.

“Like… eyes, nose, mouth?”

“That’s generally what a face is!”

Hopper felt himself relax, his heart rate slowly returning to normal. _Not the Upside Down. Just a prank._

“Okay,” Hopper said softly. “Can you remember what the person was wearing?”

“I don’t – _I don’t know!_” Winnie said hysterically. “It was dark, I only saw them for a second. They might have been wearing dark clothes, I don’t know!”

Hopper decided to ease up on the questions. Winnie evidently wasn’t able to handle much more stress.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Do you have a home security system?”

She looked at him, confused. “Yeah, we have an alarm system, but it only works if someone tries to get into the house.”

“What about cameras? You got any cameras?”

Winnie now just looked annoyed. “It’s _Hawkins,_ Chief Hopper,” she snapped. “_Nobody_ has cameras.”

Hopper nodded, conceding the point. “Okay,” he said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. “Well, we’ll look into it. But I’ll be honest with you, the chances of catching whoever did this are small – not unless he strikes again.”

Winnie looked up at him, clearly upset by this. “Well, what _are_ you going to do about this?”

Hopper tried to give her his most reassuring look. “We can set up a patrol to come by the area regularly.”

“_That’s not good enough!_” Winnie all but screamed. “I don’t feel _safe_ anymore. In my own _home!_”

Hopper let out a long exhale before saying words that were feeling far too rehearsed on his mouth – a placation that meant less than nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Hopper said. “But that’s all we can do.”

Maybe Harrington was right. Maybe they _did_ need more oversight.

-:-

Lucas picked up the phone and dialled a number he knew by heart from Mike’s phone.

It had been Mike’s idea to invite the girls over. They were apparently having a sleepover at Max’s house, and while a full sleepover would _absolutely_ be out of the question for Max’s mom and Hopper, Lucas had to admit that a late-night game with everyone would be fun.

Still, even if they wanted their girly sleepover, it was nice to have the original Party together. Will and Dustin were there, too, currently helping Mike set up a game of D and D. It was a short, self-contained campaign that Mike assured them would only run until midnight.

Which, of course, meant that they’d still be playing it at four in the morning.

The phone rang four times before someone finally picked up.

_“Hello?”_

Lucas caught himself. “Mrs Mayfield,” he said, trying his most polite tone of voice. “Sorry – uh – sorry to call so late. It’s – it’s Lucas. Lucas Sinclair…”

He tried not to flinch at the memory of the last time she’d had any contact with him, which had been at Billy’s funeral. Still, Susan Mayfield was _not_ Neil Hargrove, and by the sounds of it, Neil Hargrove was not in the picture anymore.

_“Oh, Lucas, hi.”_

Her voice had a forced tone of cheeriness that indicated that she _also_ remembered the last time she’d seen him.

_“What can I do for you?”_

Lucas was slightly at a loss to explain to Susan why he was calling at eight thirty at night to invite her daughter to a games night and have it sound even remotely innocent. Even if it was.

“Uh – well, Mike is having a games night at his place, and we were wondering – we were wondering if Max and El wanted to come over and join in. There’s going to be a few people here, and they’ll be able to make it back to yours at a sensible time, and still get to do all the girly sleepover stuff I’m sure they’ve got planned-”

He was cut off by Susan before he could babble any further.

_“Oh, that sounds lovely, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding. They’re having a sleepover at _El’s, _not here.”_

That… wasn’t what Mike had said.

“Oh, right,” Lucas said, confused. “I’ll… I’ll try there then.”

_“Hope you have fun.”_

“Thanks, Mrs Mayfield… Uh – bye.”

He hung up with a click. He paused for a second, before dialling the number for Hopper’s cabin. Hopper had made absolutely sure that all the kids knew his number by heart, drilling it repeatedly into them. Lucas had been annoyed about it at the time, but was secretly quite grateful for the knowledge as he dialled it and listened to the phone ring.

At least until it rang out.

_That was weird._

Maybe Mike had been mistaken. He went down to the basement.

“Hey, Mike, are you _sure_ the girls were having a sleepover at Max’s? It’s just… Max’s mom answered the phone and said it was at El’s.”

Mike looked up at him, confused. “Wait, _what?_ El _definitely _said it was at Max’s.”

“Well, it’s _not. _It’s got to be at El’s.”

“But it _can’t_ be at El’s,” Will jumped in, looking equally confused.

“Why not?” Lucas asked.

“Because _Hopper_ is spending the evening with my _mom._”

The room fell silent.

“Whoah, _seriously?_” Dustin asked, incredulous. “Your mom and the _Chief?_”

Will cringed at Dustin’s words. “I know, it’s gross_,_” he said with a small shudder. “But it’s also not important. If they’re having a sleepover at El’s, then they lied to Hopper and Max’s mom just as much as to us.”

“I _knew _it,” Mike said triumphantly. “They’re up to something.”

Lucas had to admit that this was suspicious.

“So what are we going to do about it?” he asked. “Do we try and catch them out?”

Mike thought about it for a second. “Call El,” he said.

“I already _did. _She’s not answering.”

Mike’s eyes snapped back to him. “_What?_”

“Try the radio,” Dustin suggested.

Mike scrambled to get the radio from the table.

“El? El, do you copy?”

Static.

“El? _Come in_, El. Over.”

Nothing.

“They’re not there,” Lucas said.

“Which means that whatever they’re up to, they’re doing it right now,” Mike explained.

“_Or_ there’s some other explanation,” Lucas said.

“Like _what, _Lucas?” Mike rounded on him. “I’ve been telling you for _weeks_ that they’re up to something. Keeping secrets. Are you _seriously_ this naïve?”

Lucas fell silent, staring, shocked and not just a little bit angry, at Mike.

“What if they’re doing stupid stuff with El’s powers again?” Mike ploughed on, undeterred by the look on Lucas’ face. “What if they’re in trouble? I’m not letting my girlfriend get hurt just because they’re shutting us out.”

“Mike, _come on_, man,” Lucas said. “Let them have their space.”

Mike gave a huff and stormed up the stairs. “Do whatever the hell you want, Lucas, but I’m going to find them.”

“And then what?”

“And _then _I’m going to talk to them. Find out what the hell is going on.”

Lucas stared incredulously after Mike’s retreating back as he reached the top of the stairs. Lucas couldn’t quite believe Mike’s lack of tact – sure, _he_ had his moments, but never anything quite so stupid as gate-crashing his girlfriend’s sleepover. However, he sure as hell wasn’t about to let Mike mess up his relationship again.

Will and Dustin watched Lucas go upstairs with more than a little annoyance. However, they weren’t about to stay behind in the Wheelers’ basement. Even watching their friends take a sledgehammer to their relationships was better. At least there was some comedy value in _that_.

-:-

Steve managed to make it down the stairs.

He _even_ managed to make it to Starcourt.

He didn’t remember most of the journey, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t _actually_ passed out at any point. That said, just about every inch of his body felt like it was on fire while simultaneously being repeatedly stabbed with knives. Maybe it _hadn’t _been such a good idea to have insisted on going.

The looming sight of what was left of the mall stood before them, and Steve had to admit that the total devastation of the site took him by surprise. The large glass dome was completely gone. There were huge cracks in the brickwork that were visible from the outside. There were, of course, vines spreading over the building, but even by Upside Down standards, there was something eerie about the ruined, abandoned building.

Steve didn’t have any energy left to ponder it as his legs completely gave out. He felt a wave of dizziness hit before suddenly Billy caught him.

“Hey,” Billy said, softly. “You’re not about to die on me, are you?”

Steve honestly didn’t know the answer to that one, but tried for a smile.

“Not yet,” he breathed out. “Got at least another thirty seconds in me.”

Billy was clearly unimpressed by Steve’s attempt at macabre humour. “Let’s just get you sat down, okay? There’s a stone over there, you can lean up against it.”

Steve didn’t remember any stone, but allowed himself to be carried towards a polished granite block that stood at the entrance to the parking lot. Not that he had much say in the matter.

Billy started to set Steve down as gently as he could against the granite block. Steve leant back and felt the cool stone pressed against his back through his shirt. There was something grounding about the slightly uncomfortable temperature that helped him stay lucid.

_God, he felt like shit._

Billy took off the flamethrower from around his shoulders and rested it up against the stone next to Steve.

“You’re welcome, by the way, for me carrying you this whole way,” Billy said, clearly trying for his own brand of humour.

Steve’s eyes drifted shut as he allowed a small smile to spread across his face. “Thanks,” he breathed.

Steve didn’t know how long his eyes stayed closed for. He felt like he must have drifted off, because he _thought_ he’d come to, but evidently if he _had_ drifted, it hadn’t been for that long, because when he opened his eyes, Billy was standing looking at the stone. It felt like it had only been a few seconds.

Billy evidently caught Steve watching him. “It’s a memorial,” Billy said quietly. “Everyone who died at Starcourt.”

“Am I on it?” Steve breathed.

Billy gave a small smile. “I’m just trying to find you. Ah – _there_ you-”

Billy broke off, his face changing to one of pure shock. Steve blinked a few times to try and bring Billy into focus as Billy took a step away from the stone, staring at it in horror.

“Billy?” Steve breathed. His heart started pounding, and Steve could feel fear rising up the back of his neck. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m on it,” was all Billy said.

Steve’s heart sank. He’d suspected as much from when he’d first discovered his own grave. He knew that feeling, that complete blankness of the mind.

“Billy, I’m sorry,” Steve said softly. “I know how you must be feeling-”

“No,” Billy cut him off. “No, no, you _don’t._”

“Billy, I’m dead as well back home-”

“No, that’s not it,” Billy all but snarled. He was getting angry, Steve could practically feel the rage rolling off him in rage. “No – if I’m dead back home, that means that little _bitch_ told everyone I’m dead.”

Steve didn’t follow.

“And she _knows_ I’m not dead – she _knows _I’m here – _Max_ knows I’m here and she fucking _left _me here-”

“What?”

“She’s left me here to die, and _she’s the one who PUT ME HERE!_”

Steve’s eyes widened as Billy’s shout sent him jolting up against the wall. He hadn’t seen Billy lose his temper like this in the entire time they’d been in the Upside Down. And more than that, what he was saying didn’t make sense.

“I thought you said you were in a car accident,” Steve said guardedly.

For the first time since seeing his name on the stone, Billy looked at Steve. His eyes were wild, staring at him, unhinged. The cold blue depths suddenly felt much darker, and Steve _understood._

“You’re _Flayed,_” Steve said softly. “You’ve been Flayed this whole time.”

“Steve…” Billy said coldly.

“_Everything_ you told me was a lie,” Steve gasped. “You’ve been manipulating me this whole time-”

Billy took a step towards him.

“Get away from me!”

Steve scrambled backwards, but Billy grabbed his arm and smashed his head against the memorial. Steve fell sideways, seeing stars, but nothing more or less than pure adrenaline stopped him from blacking out completely. The dizziness subsided as Steve realised he was being lifted up.

Billy laid him down on the top of the granite block. Steve flung out a hand at Billy, hoping for even something as small as a hit, sheer desperation driving him, but Billy intercepted his hand, pressing it down into Steve’s broken chest until Steve was curling in on himself, gasping for air. Billy bent down over him, his lips so _close_ to Steve’s ear.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Billy said softly. “It wasn’t all a lie. We were waiting for you to get better before we did this, but now it’s your only chance of survival. I told you, I’d do whatever it took to keep you alive.”

Steve’s eyes widened with panic as he turned away from Billy to look towards the mall. A huge shape emerged from the darkness, a monstrous, many legged shadow looming over the ruined building.

"Please, Billy," Steve gasped, what little breath in his lungs coming short and sharp. "Please, not like this, not like this..."

One of the legs curved out towards him. Steve’s heart was pounding – he struggled against Billy’s grip, but the hands stayed vice-like around his wrists –

“Don’t be afraid,” Billy breathed.

The shadow was coming closer.

“It’ll all be over soon.”

Steve struggled helplessly against Billy’s grip. The shadow was almost upon him –

Billy finally released Steve’s hands and stepped back. Steve twisted his body, trying to get away –

It was too late.

The world disappeared into a swirling vortex of darkness as Steve finally let out an agonized scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So.
> 
> I have been planning this and setting this up for absolutely AGES! Almost all of you saw that whole Billy-is-still-flayed twist coming, and have been posting your wonderful theories about what the hell has been happening in the comments section, because from Steve's perspective, none of what Billy has done makes any sense whatsoever. Trust me, I'm aware of this. It is deliberate, there IS a plan, and there is a lot of thought that has gone into all of Billy's actions. Rest assured, all your questions will have answers, it's just that I can't tell you yet because Steve is just as confused as you all are. Big shout-out to the wonderful Saighin who posted a whole psychological profile of Billy in the comments section a couple of chapters ago, which was an absolutely fascinating read. (Saighin, I'm so sorry I didn't reply to the comment, it was very much appreciated but I didn't want to give anything away!)
> 
> In terms of the cliffhanger... I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm really not. I'm so excited for the next chapter.


	21. Part 2 Chapter 14: Whatever It Takes

The darkness was absolute. Steve twisted his body against the stone, trying to get away from the long tendrils that were stretching out, but it was no use. There was no way out – he could hardly _move…_

The pain was so intense, so _unique. _He felt it in every inch of his body, every cell coming alive. He had never been so acutely aware that there were so many different components of his body, each one _alive,_ connected to him, but each part capable of coming alive and dying separately. It was like he was feeling every single cell in his body dying at once, _screaming _at him, determined that in their final moments they would let him know just what it meant to be _alive._

His mind, too, was having its say. Memories of his entire life flashed across his mind in a second – _his first clear memory, getting a lollipop from his dad after he’d come back from a business trip when he was three… his first day of school, being left at the gates with absolutely no idea what he was expected to do… meeting Tommy in middle school, making some stupid joke about the teacher… his first kiss with Heather Holloway… Tommy telling him about Carol… seeing Nancy for the first time… asking Nancy out… breaking Jonathan’s camera… going to Jonathan’s house to apologise only to discover that monsters existed… making things right with Nancy… a million and one memories that told the story of them falling in love, until… Nancy standing in that bathroom, telling him that their love was all bullshit… Dustin dragging him along to take on a Demogorgon called D’Artagnan… getting punched repeatedly in the face by Billy… getting rejection letters from all his college applications… his father telling him to get a job on his own or get cut off after his high school graduation… starting at Scoops Ahoy and meeting Robin… discovering that secret Russian base… watching Hopper turn away from him at the Gate… finding Billy in the Upside Down… finding his own grave in the churchyard… Billy bringing him soup afterwards… realising Billy was gay… Billy telling him about his mom… looking up at Billy and realising that he was Flayed…_

He didn’t want his memories to become property of the Mind Flayer. He didn’t want to _lose_ them – to lose _himself._ He didn’t want his body, his mind, his _memories _to be used against all these people, to be used to destroy Robin and Dustin and Nancy and Jonathan. He didn’t want to become another puppet, used to manipulate the people he loved like Billy had manipulated him. He didn’t want the Mind Flayer to know what he knew about El and Will Byers. He didn’t want the Mind Flayer to get close to them. He didn’t want the Mind Flayer to _use him_ to get close to them. _Anything_ was better than that.

Tears poured down Steve’s cheeks as he finally realised that, for the first time in his life, _he wanted to die._

-:-

Max and El walked into the woods. It was later than they’d ever done it before, but that was the way things had fallen. Max’s mom had wanted some mother-daughter bonding time during the day, and with Hopper eager to spend a night at Joyce’s, Mike’s game night provided the perfect opportunity for another attempt.

“Here?” Max said as they walked into a clearing.

El nodded. “Here,” she said quietly.

-:-

Steve twisted and turned on the memorial, desperate for anything to come along and save him. He desperately tried to get his mouth to form Billy’s name, to _beg_ him for help, but it refused to cooperate. He fought to turn his head – every inch of his body was screaming in protest – it required every ounce of his strength – he twisted his neck, feeling _every single muscle_ that such a simple action required – he turned his head towards where Billy was supposed to be standing –

Only to see an impenetrable wall of black.

He finally got his mouth to move, but now his _lungs _weren’t working. He found himself vaguely forming the word _‘Billy’ _over and over again with his lips, but sound wasn’t coming out. Or at least, if it was, he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear much over the roaring in his ears.

Desperately, he found himself stretching out a hand towards where he _knew_ Billy must be standing. He didn’t know if Billy – the _real _Billy – was still in there – but Billy had told him so much about his life, things far more personal, things that made far more sense than anything he’d seen the Mind Flayer construct – _but what if it had all been a lie?_

Steve had to believe Billy was still in there.

His hand finally found the edge of the memorial, the edge of the highly polished slab of granite. With more effort than Steve thought he’d ever needed for anything in his life, he twisted his other arm across his body, turning onto his side to grab the edge with two hands –

Steve’s hand brushed against something metal.

Confusion flashed across his mind. He turned his head down to see a long, black tube, leaning up against the side of the stone…

_The flamethrower._

His fingers closed around the barrel, and he hauled it up onto the granite. His fingers searched desperately for that lighter – it _had_ to still be in his pocket – he thought he’d remembered to check – _please, God, let it be there…_

His fingers brushed against the cold metal square as he frantically pulled it out. He pulled the flamethrower across his body, pulling down on the trigger to try and get the pilot light on – his hands slipped over the lighter, desperately trying to get a spark –

He could have cried with relief when the little blue flame appeared at the end. He twisted the flamethrower upwards, aiming it at the sky –

Only to be confronted by the enormity of the monster.

This wasn’t some Demogorgon, this wasn’t a pack of Demodogs, Steve didn’t even know if this thing could _feel _anything, it didn’t even look _solid. _His shoulders sagged into the stone, despair pressing him down into the memorial. The irony was not lost on him – losing himself on top of something memorialising his death when he _wished _he could meet his end in such a simple way as just _dying _–

_Just dying…_

Whatever happened, his life was over. Whether he became Flayed like Billy, or whether, by some miracle, he got out of this for long enough for his lungs to simply give out like they’d been threatening to do for so long, he, _Steve Harrington, _was gone. He might as well end it on his own terms. At least then, he could be sure his friends were safe.

The Mind Flayer hated heat. How had they put it again back in November?

_Make the host uninhabitable._

Steve lowered the flamethrower from the sky and aimed it down his body.

Uninhabitable. Got it.

He pulled the trigger.

-:-

El placed the blindfold over her eyes while Max set up the radio. Static suddenly sounded in the clearing, and El tuned into it, concentrating on it, until finally, the sounds of static and wind in the trees fell away to reveal complete silence, in a world entirely her own.

-:-

The pain was excruciating. The heat was so intense that Steve could have sworn that his skin was melting off his flesh. The flames seemed to be concentrated on his leg – huge blisters bubbled up – Steve’s breaths started to come fast, desperate, what little air in his lungs escaping in desperate gasps – but _gasps didn’t tear at his throat like that_ –

Suddenly, several blisters popped open – if Steve had been screaming before, he _definitely _was screaming now – tears poured down his face – he couldn’t see much of his leg – but it looked like it was going black – the blisters were still bursting open – the dead skin was turning black –

_It was too much._

The darkness still surrounded him. He _had _to keep going. No matter how much it hurt.

He tightened his finger around the trigger, pulling it tighter. It was too much – his hand that was aiming the barrel slipped from the weapon – the flamethrower slipped onto his stomach – but Steve _had to keep going – _even if it killed him – the world was slipping away –

The darkness around him suddenly fell away. The roaring in his ears stopped. Steve’s hand released the trigger and the fire stopped. He lay there, gasping for air. His broken, damaged chest was suddenly brought back to his awareness with sickening clarity – his leg was still in agony –

He glanced down at his leg and immediately wished he hadn’t. The skin had almost entirely fallen away, huge holes in the skin revealing burning, weeping sores. The only skin left on his lower leg was blackened at the edges, thin strips that separated the sores but did little more than that, absurdly reminding Steve of bubble wrap, only with none of the uniformity and all the bubbles popped.

“You _idiot!_”

Steve suddenly remembered Billy. He was stood to one side, exactly where Steve remembered him standing, looking breathless. Steve practically flung himself off the granite, rolling off and stumbling to catch himself –

He let out a broken cry as his burnt leg took his weight. He lost his balance and fell sideways, hitting the floor hard. The fall jostled his chest, but for the first time in a _long_ time, that wasn’t the most painful part of his body. Even the smallest breeze sent waves of agony through Steve’s leg, and landing on rough asphalt and scraping along the floor had his vision swimming.

Adrenaline, however, forced Steve to do his best to suppress both pains. He aimed the flamethrower at Billy. If he’d been thinking more clearly, he would have been surprised the pilot light hadn’t caught on anything in the fall.

“Don’t-” Steve gasped. “Don’t come any closer.”

Billy looked down at Steve lying on the ground, unimpressed. Steve was sure he cut a pitiful figure, completely incapable of standing, but he didn’t care.

“Steve,” Billy said imploringly. “Don’t you _see?_ We’re trying to _help _you. We _want _to help you.”

“That’s not you,” Steve rasped. “That’s not you.”

“We don’t want you to die,” Billy said, taking a step forward.

“_Get away from me!_” Steve all but screamed, using his good leg to push himself back. He winced as his burnt leg dragged across the asphalt.

“I thought you wanted to go _home,_ Steve,” Billy’s voice was warm, completely at odds with the ice in his eyes. “I thought you wanted to see your family again.”

“Billy,” Steve rasped, breathing hard. “This isn’t you.”

“We can make that happen,” Billy implored. “You can _live._ You can see your mom, and your dad, and Robin_,_ Dustin, _everyone. _Just let us – let _me_ – help you.”

Tears started falling down Steve’s face. His heart clenched at the thought of his old life.

“You don’t want to die, Steve,” Billy said softly.

What little air that escaped from his lungs got caught in his throat. He could see Dustin’s face in his mind’s eye. He could practically _hear_ Robin calling him _‘dingus’_ in his ear. He closed his eyes, his face screwed up tight as he thought of his life left behind. His eyes opened, and he saw Billy step around the memorial.

He was already dead.

“Go to _hell!_” Steve gasped.

His fingers closed around the trigger again and fire blasted in Billy’s general direction. He didn’t look to see how accurate he’d been. He pushed himself to his feet and started to run – or, more accurately, hobble – away from Billy. He was practically dragging his burnt leg across the parking lot, barely looking at where he was going, sparing Billy only the occasional backward glance, determined to put as much distance between himself and Billy as possible, moving on nothing but adrenaline.

Billy recovered from the initial blast, dodging the jet of fire as the burning fuel sprayed onto the asphalt. He walked around the flames, barely needing more than a powerful stride to close the gap between him and Steve. Steve’s heart sank as he glanced over his shoulder to see Billy less than five feet from him. He turned around, sending another blast of fire his way.

Steve turned around, trying to pick up the pace –

A huge, monstrous leg slammed itself down in his path. Steve changed direction, doing his best to haul himself away from it, only for the leg to move into his new path. He was surprised the shadow wasn’t trying to move towards him – he suspected it was waiting for Billy to take the flamethrower off him again.

Steve tried a new direction, blindly, desperately reaching out for any way out. The mall was dimly visible – his vision was swimming – he could barely tell which way was up…

If he could make it to the mall, there was a chance he could find somewhere to hide. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hide for _long,_ but maybe just long enough.

He stumbled forwards. His chest felt tight, there was hardly any air in his lungs, his leg was in agony. Blood was pounding in his ears. He didn’t think he could go much further –

His good leg finally gave out and he crashed to his knees. He let out a broken cry that forced out what little stolen air he’d managed to claim in his lungs.

_The door was so close…_

He used the last of his strength to crawl towards the threshold. His knees felt a certain amount of thanks as he finally made it onto the smooth tiles –

Rough hands suddenly seized his shoulders from behind. Steve found himself being turned onto his back to look up at Billy’s deranged face. Billy closed his hands around the flamethrower, trying to pull it off him. Steve frantically grabbed it, twisting his arms around the strap –

A blow to the head sent stars across his vision. For a split second, he was back on the Byers’ floor, looking up as Billy slammed his fists repeatedly into his face until the world went dark. Steve wasn’t about to let that happen again –

He closed his fingers around the trigger – he didn’t care where it was pointing – flames shot out between them off to one side towards the door for a split second. It was completely ineffective, but it was enough to make Billy jump, jolting back away from him as he twisted his arms further around the strap, redoubling what little grip he had.

“Steve,” Billy growled –

A crack like thunder echoed out around them. Both Steve and Billy’s heads snapped towards the door, looking out towards the treeline. The sky was lit up from below, stained a murky red.

_A Gate._

Billy looked down at Steve, visibly torn. Steve _knew_ that whatever resistance he put up at this point wouldn’t be enough, he didn’t have anything left in him. He could only _pray_ that the time sensitivity of the Gate would be enough for Billy to leave him, _just for a little bit longer._

Billy locked eyes with Steve, and Steve could practically see the conclusion come to him in those deranged blue eyes.

_Steve wasn’t going anywhere._

Billy spared Steve one last look before turning towards the door and running out, the Shadow on his tail.

-:-

Mike, Lucas, Will and Dustin had just made it to Hopper’s cabin on their bikes when a sound like thunder echoed throughout the forest.

“The _hell…?_” Dustin said, looking around. It was a completely clear night, just like it had been the night before, and the night before that.

“It came from over there,” Will said, pointing out into the woods. He suddenly felt very uneasy.

Lucas had been the only one with enough sense to think about bringing a torch. Truth be told, he now seemed to permanently have an ‘adventure backpack’ slung over his shoulders, complete with large water bottle, torch, slingshot, radio, and even a couple of candy bars. He fished it out and switched it on and led the way.

Will’s unease increased with each step. Something was wrong – something was _very_ wrong. He thought back to what Hopper had said the last time he’d visited, what Hopper had said about _not doing things on their own._

“I think we should call Hopper,” he said softly.

“There’s no time,” Mike snapped. “If you want, try reaching him over the radio.”

“We don’t have the frequency for his police radio,” Dustin pointed out. “And, let’s be honest, has he _ever_ used the one we gave him?”

Will _really_ didn’t like that.

“Guys,” Lucas interrupted. “There’s light up ahead!”

Four heads turned to peer through the trees at where a dim red glow was emanating. Lucas switched off the torch and started creeping through the trees. Will suddenly felt a strange sensation on the back of his neck. He reached up a hand to touch it, unseen by the three boys in front of him, fear rising in his chest.

Finally, Lucas made it to the outskirts of the clearing, and his jaw dropped.

A Gate was open in the dirt. Max and El stood in front of it, their backs to the boys, just… _looking…_ They didn’t seem _surprised, _or _worried, _or _scared…_ It didn’t make any sense at all, unless –

_El opened the Gate._

Lucas felt the other three come up behind him, and practically felt their shock.

“What the…” Dustin breathed, only audible to Lucas because it was right in his ear.

El was holding the Gate open. Her hand stayed outstretched. It was almost like she was waiting for something, or testing herself…

Something moved in the red light within the Gate. A shadow, a silhouette of a head and shoulders was peering through it, like a reflection in a lake.

“Wait!” Max said, looking at El.

“Max…” El said softly, her tone carrying the slightest hint of warning.

Max gave no indication that she’d heard El. She walked towards the Gate. She crouched down at the edge, beside the silhouette.

The silhouette stretched out a hand towards the Gate. Max could see the five fingered hand reaching towards her. As if in a trance, Max stretched out her own hand, inching it closer and closer to the Gate…

“Billy?” she breathed.

She was almost touching the Gate –

“_Max, no!_” El screamed.

Max was flung away from the Gate – not far, but enough that she landed on her back. The silhouette’s hand was touching the Gate, almost pushing through –

El let out a scream, stretching out her other hand to fling the silhouette away. Max looked at El, dumbstruck, before El turned to her, eyes wide.

“Max…” she said determinedly. “He’s bad.”

Max looked back towards the Gate. Her eyes were wide, searching for the silhouette, not sure if she wanted to find it or not…

The shadow did not return.

Max looked over at El. “Close it,” she said softly.

El gave her a nod before stretching out her hand. The boys stared at them, still hidden in the shadows, watching as the Gate started knitting itself together.

The whole process took less than a minute.

The clearing was plunged into darkness, the only light coming from the moon. They watched as the silhouette of Max went over to a bag, extracting a torch and turning it on. She then pulled out some tissues, handing them to El, who promptly sat down and wiped her nose. Max looked upset, stunned, but sat down next to El and pulled her into a tight hug.

Mike wasn’t staying still any longer.

“What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?” he yelled as he stormed out of the trees. Lucas followed him, fumbling with the torch as Max and El both jumped to their feet, turning towards them both, a torchlight shining in Mike’s face.

“What the _hell _are you doing here?” Max snarled. “Are you – are you _spying _on us?”

“Yeah, like _you _can talk!” Mike scoffed. “And _don’t _try and turn this on us – was that a _Gate?_”

El and Max looked at each other, uncomfortable. Lucas would normally be trying to rein Mike in, but this wasn’t a normal set of circumstances. He wanted answers, too.

“Yes,” Max finally said.

Dustin let out a breath. “Jesus,” he said softly, shaking his head.

“Why?” Will asked. He sounded absolutely shell-shocked.

El looked at Mike, meeting his eyes. “We were trying to get Billy back,” she said quietly.

“_What?_” Mike said.

“Billy’s still in the Upside Down,” she explained. “We want to bring him back… back _home._”

Lucas felt his rising anger soften slightly. “Why didn’t you _tell _us?” he said.

“Because we weren’t ready to bring him back yet,” Max cut in. “We needed to work out how to… un-Flay him. This was just…”

“Practice,” El finished.

“_Practice?_” Dustin echoed, “You mean – oh, _Jesus,_ you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

The silence that met Dustin’s words confirmed his fears.

“How long has this been going on?” Will asked.

Again, silence.

“_Well?_” Mike asked, his eyebrows raised.

Max couldn’t bring herself to look any of them in the eyes. “Since Billy’s funeral,” she said quietly.

Will felt his heart sink. Lucas closed his eyes, unable to look at Max. Mike threw up his hands and turned away. Dustin let out an exhale that quickly evolved into muttering.

Anger was not an especially familiar emotion to Dustin. He was pretty sure he could count the times he could remember being angry – _truly_ angry – on one hand. _Annoyance_ he knew very well – nobody couldn’t deal with the stubborn pig-headedness of Mike Wheeler and Lucas Sinclair without it – but true, _deep_ anger… that was something altogether different.

_Well, this may have stretched that number across two hands._

“Shit,” Dustin muttered. “Holy fucking shit… I can’t believe this, I _actually _can’t believe this…”

“Dustin-” Max tried to say, but Dustin cut her off with a hand.

“No,” he said quietly, his voice low. “No, _don’t even…_”

Max stopped, looking at Dustin warily, almost _scared._

“Do you have _any _idea what you were doing?” Dustin finally said, his voice still quiet but carrying such intensity as he didn’t even _look _at Max. “I can’t believe you – we’re all sat here, freaking out about the _Russians_ coming back, trying to prepare ourselves for another fucking _invasion_ in case they decide that they want to open the _Gate_ again, but here _you two are,_ fucking – fucking _opening Gates in the woods_ like it’s _nothing!_”

“Dustin, I’m sorry-”

“No – no, you don’t _get_ to be sorry, Max!” Dustin finally looked at her. “Do you have _any _idea how _dangerous_ this is? The danger you put _us_ in? Every time a Gate has been opened, people have _died!_ Our _friends_ have died! That’s why we’re all in this mess – to stop shit like this happening again! People died to stop this – _Steve _died to stop this! And you’re undoing _everything_ he died for!”

Max stood there, looking shocked. She’d never seen Dustin like this.

“Dustin, I’m sorry,” she said, and for the first time, her voice shook slightly. “I… I really _am_ sorry about Steve, but he’s _gone. _But there’s a chance that Billy can come back. And if… if there’s even the _slightest _chance I can bring him home, then I will do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

Dustin looked at her, absolutely disgusted. He looked between her and El, shaking his head.

“Go to hell, Max,” he said quietly, turning on his heel and walking out of the clearing.

Max stared after Dustin, trying to fight back tears. The complete condemnation in his eyes was enough to deter her from trying to reconcile with him. She’d never seen him look at _anyone_ like that.

“Dustin’s right,” Mike said. “It was stupid of you to do this. What the hell were you _thinking?_ Don’t you remember what about Will? And what about Bob? You put _everyone _at risk!”

“What was I _supposed_ to do, Mike?” Max asked, her voice high. “Billy’s trapped in the Upside Down, and _nobody _was doing anything about it! It tore my family apart! My mom can barely get out of bed in the morning because Neil bailed on us after everything! Hell, they made us have a _funeral _for him! They may as well have just spelled out that _‘yeah, Billy’s stuck in another dimension, but we’re just going to leave him there for dead,’ _and at least they would have been being fucking _honest _about it! You’re always the one saying that nobody should be left behind, that we should _drop _everything to help our friends, or does that not apply when it’s _Billy?_”

“Well, if it’s so _noble,_ why didn’t you tell us?” Mike snapped back.

Max fell silent, her eyes wide. She looked between Mike, Lucas and Will, tears shining in her eyes.

“I was scared you would have said no,” she muttered quietly.

Mike looked at her incredulously. “Yeah,” he huffed out. “We probably would’ve. Because _this _is insane!”

“It was for Billy,” El said timidly, cutting through Mike’s ranting. “Mike… _please_ understand…”

Mike’s expression softened at the sight of El’s terrified face, but he couldn’t get past this. This wasn’t some stupid little white lie; this had been systematic deception for _weeks._ It had been reckless, and wrong, and they had both _known _it was wrong, and they had still done it anyway.

“I don’t,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry El, I _don’t._ Friends don’t lie.”

El’s face crumpled. The tears that were shining in her eyes started to fall freely down her cheeks.

“Come on,” Mike said to Lucas and Will, turning on his heel to lead the way out of the clearing.

Max rushed forwards to grab Lucas’ arm. “Lucas, _wait!_”

He turned around to look at her. He took in her face, shining with tears, her eyes, _begging _him to understand, to _stay…_

“Lucas, _please,_” she said desperately. “I did it to get Billy back, I didn’t want anyone to get hurt-”

“I know,” he said softly. “I get it, I really do. But you need to _trust _me, Max. I would have helped you. Maybe not with _this_, but we could have found another way to get him back. But instead, you shut me out. And if you can’t _trust _me with something as big as _this…_ I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“Lucas-”

“Do you know what I thought was going on?” Lucas asked. “When you shut me out of your life, when you’d hardly ever call, when you’d barely even _look _at me, do you know what I thought?”

Max looked at him, terrified and confused.

“I thought your stepdad had got to you somehow,” he explained. “I thought he’d somehow changed your mind about me – said something about me that had made you so uncomfortable around me, something that you’d finally _believed._”

“Lucas, how could you think-”

“That’s just it, Max, I didn’t know _what _to think!” Lucas exclaimed. “You were going through all this shit on your own, and I wanted to help, but every time you saw me, you were so uncomfortable around me, so on edge, I started to wonder. And if I can’t trust that you _don’t _think these things about me, and if you can’t trust me enough to tell me that you were opening _Gates_ _in the woods_ to get Billy back, then where do we _go _from here?”

Max looked at him, thunderstruck. “W-what are you saying?”

“I’m _saying _I think it’s over,” Lucas said. “For real. I’m sorry.”

Max’s eyes widened with shock. “Lucas…” she stammered. “Lucas, _please,_ can we talk about this?”

“What else is there to _say, _Max?” Lucas asked softly. “We don’t trust each other. This isn’t me doing something stupid, or insensitive, or _whatever,_ this is… This is _real, _Max.”

Max’s breath was coming in shuddering sobs. “Lucas, _please…_”

Lucas was surprised to find his own eyes stinging as he looked at her. “Goodbye, Mad Max,” he said softly, before turning around and following Mike and Will out of the clearing, leaving her standing in the dark.

-:-

Dustin didn’t know how long he’d been walking. He finally made it to the top of the hill, his eyes resting on the tower he’d assembled all those weeks ago. He’d not been back here since that evening, he’d been so caught up in everything that had happened, and he’d discovered that the last thing he wanted to do was to talk about it again with yet _another _person who couldn’t ever know the full story. But right now, this was what he needed. _Suzie _was what he needed.

That did, of course, presume that she’d forgive him for not calling her in over a month.

He sat down on the grass and turned on the radio. He adjusted the frequency, and took a deep breath.

“Suzie?” he said softly. “Suzie, do you copy?”

Nothing.

“Suzie, it’s Dustin, do you copy?”

Static –

_“This is Suzie, I copy.”_

As happy as Dustin was to hear her voice, he couldn’t ignore the icy cold anger there.

“Suzie? It’s Dustin, it’s so good to hear your voice-”

_“Dustin, what the hell? Camp finished over a month ago. You haven’t called me for ages and then suddenly you call me in the middle of the night?”_

“Yeah, I know, I’m so sorry, Suzie-poo,” he said, hoping his pet nickname for her would somehow ease her anger. “I know it’s been a long time, but I’ve been busy-”

_“What could possibly have had you so busy that you couldn’t call me for weeks?”_

Well, he did like that she was smart. So – honesty. He’d watched Lucas get in enough trouble with Max for lying to know not to make that mistake.

“I… My friend died,” he said.

There was silence on the other line for a second. _“Oh…” _she said. _“Oh my god, Dusty, I’m sorry, are you okay?”_

“Yeah… it was a little while ago now, it was back in July, but it’s… It took a lot out of me. It’s not an excuse, I know, but it’s the truth.”

Suzie was quiet on the other end of the line for a moment. _“Do you want to talk about it?”_

Well now, _there _was a question. “I don’t know,” Dustin said. “It’s like… _everyone_ in town is talking about it, it was this huge fire, _loads_ of people died. It’s like… I’ve got loads of people to talk to about it, who _kind of _understand, and I’ve been _trying,_ but it’s like I’m talking round in circles. It’s not helping, people don’t _really _get it, people don’t get why I’m upset, and it’s like… it’s _everywhere._ People keep _telling _me that talking helps, but it isn’t helping, and I’m just… I’m just so _tired._”

Saying all this to Suzie finally clarified something in his brain, and evidently in hers, too, because she understood something there that Dustin may not have understood.

_“What do you mean when you say you’re ‘tired’?”_

Dustin paused, thinking. “It’s like… I just don’t have it in me to _do _anything. It’s not like it’s all the _time,_ there are some days when I feel like I can do things. It… It helps if I’ve committed to do something. But – like – _little _things… Things that I don’t _technically _have to do _right now,_ that’s when I just find myself… putting it off. Things like getting up, doing laundry-”

_“Calling me,” _Suzie said quietly.

Dustin squeezed his eyes together, finally feeling tears welling up in his eyes. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Even calling you_._ God… Suzie, I’m _so_ _sorry_…”

His voice choked up. He tried to force himself to take a deep breath, but when he released it, it came out shuddering.

_“It’s okay,” _Suzie said, and by the sound of her voice, she sounded like she was choking up as well. _“I get it. In a way, if you’re going to be MIA for a month, I’m glad it’s for _this _rather than just… you not liking me, or that outside camp we’d lost that connection, which is what I _thought _had happened. Obviously, I’d rather you not feel like this at all, but we can work through this. _You _can work through this.”_

Dustin felt his heart swell up at Suzie’s words, a wave of relief washing over him, tears falling down his cheeks. His breaths were shaking, his voice cracking. “God, Suzie, it’s not even just _doing _things. It’s like… I’m so tired of _feeling _like this. It’s like I’ve been feeling so saturated in feeling sad that I’m just _tired _of feeling like this that I just _can’t _be anymore. It’s like I’ve become so desensitized to it that there’s just… nothing. And I don’t _want _to feel nothing. He was… He was _really _important to me. And it’s like there are days when I can _feel _that he’s gone, and it _hurts,_ it hurts so much and I freak out and I can’t do _anything, _and I don’t want to feel that anymore, but then there are days when I feel that he’s gone and it’s like it doesn’t even _matter _anymore – even to _me_ – and that scares me so much, Suzie.”

Dustin had largely switched off from talking to people about Steve, even to Robin, because he hadn’t wanted to admit _any _of this to Robin, and he had no idea if any of the Party would understand. They barely understood his friendship with Steve as it was – they knew he had been closer to Steve than any of them had been, but Dustin had found himself gravitating towards Steve more and more, particularly as Mike and Lucas had gotten closer to El and Max and Will had been trying to become more independent following November.

_“Okay,”_ Suzie said, speaking slowly. It was exactly the same way she would talk when she was talking herself through a math problem that she just needed to wrap her head around to work out. _“First of all, it sounds like there’s a lot going on there, and we’re not going to be able to fix this tonight. So when we finish speaking, go home, go to bed, and we’ll take it from where we are when it’s less… late. Second – it sounds like you’re feeling guilty about not feeling sad enough sometimes. But it sounds like you’ve been feeling really upset about this for a really long time, and you just need a bit of a break. So go and do something fun tomorrow, and don’t feel guilty about it. Call a friend and play Dungeons and Dragons, or… go to the arcade and get a load of ice cream or candy afterwards. It doesn’t matter what it is, it just needs to be fun, and don’t feel guilty about it. I didn’t know your friend, but I don’t think he’d want you sitting in your room all day every day feeling miserable. Sometimes you just need to have a good, fun day where you _don’t _think about all the bad things, and you only talk about nice, uncomplicated things. My mom always does that with me when I’m hung up on something.”_

Dustin gave a watery laugh. “Thanks, Suzie.”

_“Also,” _Suzie said. _“You mentioned that scheduling things helps you do stuff. So we’re going to schedule our next call. Do you think you can call me again on Thursday at around four o’clock?”_

Dustin closed his eyes and smiled towards the microphone. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, I can do that.”

_“Great, let’s do that then. You call me at sixteen hundred hours on Thursday. If you don’t call me, I _will _call your house. You gave me your number in case of emergencies. So… if you don’t call, I _will _use the telephone, and my parents may possibly find out about us and forbid me from calling you, so you’d better call me.”_

Dustin gave another watery laugh. “I will, Suzie. Don’t worry.”

-:-

Paul was, if anything, slightly confused by the knock on his door at eleven thirty at night.

He was still up, but Linda had gone to bed. Also, quite frankly, anyone who was disturbing him at his house at this hour needed to have the best reason possible.

Which was why he was slightly surprised to see Harry Beaumont standing on his doorstep.

“Hello,” Paul said warily.

Beaumont looked… haggard, to say the least. Paul knew the debate hadn’t gone _well_ for him, and took a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing the reason why, but he hadn’t quite expected _this. _His hair was a mess, like he’d been repeatedly running his hand through it, the shadows under his eyes that Paul hadn’t cared enough to notice at the debate were now more pronounced, and the dim light gave him an almost skull-like appearance.

“Hi,” Beaumont said breathlessly. His voice was higher than Paul remembered it, shaking slightly. He looked jittery, his hands not staying still, twisting in and out of themselves. “Uh – I wanted to come by – to tell you something – I thought you should be the first to know – uh…”

Paul found himself feeling oddly sympathetic for the man on his doorstep despite everything. “Do you – ah – want to come in?” he offered. “You look like you could use a strong drink.”

“Uh – _no, _no need, this – this won’t take long, I’ve… I’ve got to drive back, anyway…” Beaumont’s hands still twisted in and out of themselves. “I just came by to tell you – you’ve won. I’m – I’m pulling out of the race.”

Paul’s carefully schooled expression broke slightly as his eyebrows shot up. “Are you _serious?_”

Beaumont nodded. “Yeah, I mean… the debate today – it really brought it home…” Beaumont ran his hands through his hair. “It wasn’t even a debate, really, was it? It was – an _inquest,_ that was what it – I mean… anyway…

“The point – the _point _is…” Beaumont said, refocusing his gaze on Paul’s face, a glint in his eyes that seemed to Paul like he was _fighting _to keep them in one place. “Hawkins – it doesn’t _want _me. It doesn’t want _anyone _who had anything to do with Starcourt – or Kline – or _anything. _Tonight – it just proved it. Everyone _hates_ me. And… I don’t want to _be_ the face of this – I don’t want to put my family through that. I mean – tonight – tonight, Winnie Kline was attacked on her _doorstep, _for God’s sake… I don’t want to put my family through that…”

Paul hid his surprise at that latest bit of news far more successfully than he had at the previous revelation. He didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll stay on as Mayor for a little bit,” Beaumont said. “Just for a transition period – at least until after you’ve got a mandate. Pretty sure you’re the only name on the ballot now, but… there’s still a chance someone could decide to run against you, and it’s worth getting voted in, anyway. No point in being unelected when you’re on track to _win._ And… I don’t know if it’ll do more harm than good, but I’m happy to endorse you if it’ll help.”

Paul was extremely confused at the turn his evening had taken. “Ah… thank you,” he said quietly.

“Oh – and… it was ‘ignorant’_,_” Beaumont said.

“What?”

“The answer to your earlier question,” Beaumont said. “You asked if I was ignorant, incompetent or involved. I was – I was ignorant. Or maybe incompetent. I did look over the plans for Starcourt, I always do, but I didn’t see anything that would have suggested that corners were being cut. I also had a look over the budget for the building, but there was nothing to suggest that Kline was being bribed to cover it up. It… It must have come out of Starcourt Industries’ own pockets. And… I hope – I _really hope _you know… I’m sorry. I know there’s nothing I can say that’ll make up for it, but… I’ve never been more sorry for anything in my life. I can’t imagine what you and all those other people must have gone through. And I’m sorry I didn’t do enough to stop it.”

-:-

Steve wasn’t sure how much time had passed.

He had hardly moved, just lying on the cold tiles, staring up at the ceiling, at the broken skylight, drifting… He was certain he’d fallen in and out of consciousness a few times. His head was still swimming… He could feel _something _damp in his hair… Maybe when Billy had smashed his head against the granite memorial, it had broken his skin… Nothing was quite staying focused…

Billy would be back soon. He probably should already be back. Unless… had something happened at the Gate? Something that meant he’d made it through? Something that meant the _Mind Flayer _had made it through? The Mind Flayer had _never_ tried to go through the Gate on its own, but what if it tried to go through with _Billy?_

His head swam, his vision tilted alarmingly again, and he found himself drifting once more. Every single breath seemed to be getting stuck in his throat. His eyes drifted shut… colours danced behind his eyelids… swirling together to come to a bright light… He thought he could hear voices… but he couldn’t make out what they were saying…

He forced his eyes open to find himself still looking up at the ruined mall. His vision was still swimming, but something was different. There was a light by the door… _multiple _lights…

He forced his eyes to look over to the door to see a silhouette of a man… he was holding a light, but beyond that, Steve couldn’t make out much else… he couldn’t even make out a _face…_

There was another silhouette next to the first. And a third… And a fourth… They were all holding lights, all of them pointing straight at him. He couldn’t make out much, but he could see it _wasn’t _Billy. Even if he’d wanted to, he knew he couldn’t run. His vision swayed again, and Steve closed his eyes to the movement…

He felt hands on his shoulders…

He felt himself being dragged out of the mall…

He felt himself being lifted somewhere… his eyes cracked open for a second to see – _was that a helicopter?_

A buzzing sound filled his ears… He felt himself lying down on a hard surface… His mind drifted…

Snapshots of lucidity, each lasting for the length of time it took to crack his eyes open and let them drift shut again, were the only clues as to what was going on. The helicopter was traded with a plane… There was the roar of an engine… People were sat on the plane with him, wearing silver biohazard suits, their faces hidden with gas masks… The plane was _flying…_

Rough hands brought him back to awareness. He was being dragged again, dragged off the plane to a place he didn’t recognise… He was being taken into a building… Down a corridor… and towards –

_A Gate._

The red light filled the room. Steve was being taken towards it… He was going _home…_

He winced as bright yellow light assaulted his eyes. It was more light than he must have seen in _weeks,_ his eyes accustomed to the darkness of the Upside Down. He found himself being dropped roughly onto the floor. He was dimly aware of activity exploding around him, people rushing towards him, voices saying words that he couldn’t understand, couldn’t make out…

The voices suddenly stopped. Steve fought to open his eyes, blinking against the light, fighting his own reflexes to clench his eyes shut as tightly as possible. He felt a hand on his face, turning it upwards, and finally, _finally,_ he managed to keep his eyes long enough to focus…

His heart sank as he found himself looking at a face he thought he would only see again in his nightmares.

“Hello, _Butterscotch_.”

-:-

_HAWKINS POST, SEPTEMBER 6th, 1985_

_HARRINGTON SWORN IN AS MAYOR_

_Paul Harrington was sworn into office yesterday as the new Mayor of Hawkins following an election last week where he ran unopposed. He takes over from Harry Beaumont, who has been Acting Mayor of Hawkins since August, following the arrest of former Mayor Lawrence Kline on corruption charges. Kline was arrested for taking bribes to cover up dangerous design flaws in the new Starcourt Mall which ultimately led to the gas explosion in July that killed 30 people, including Harrington’s son. Harrington admitted in a speech following his oath of office that he asked to be sworn in yesterday as it would have been his son’s birthday. He has been open on the campaign trail that the Starcourt Tragedy had motivated him to run for office, arguing for greater improvements and oversight in local emergency services._

Larry Kline put down the newspaper. It was strange to see the photograph of someone he would have considered one of his best friends a matter of months ago standing in what had been _his _office. Paul hadn’t spoken to him since his arrest, but had made it very clear to Larry that he _hated_ him. From the sudden rejection by Harrington Spencer to legally represent him to the open condemnation in numerous speeches on the campaign trail, even to the fact that he was on the campaign trail _at all… _It told Larry all he needed to know. His own _name_ was a dirty word to Paul.

Not that Larry could entirely blame him.

Larry had had no way of knowing that Paul’s kid was mixed up in all this. He’d had no idea that the kid had worked at the mall – Paul had never mentioned, probably for reasons to do with the fact that he’d become very quiet about his underachieving son.

The outside world believed that Larry was in a white-collar prison. While that _was _still the case, it was a temporary situation. Larry was aware of the _other _charges levelled against him – the _unofficial _charges. The ones that the media wouldn’t hear about. They were keeping him here for a little while – just until there was nobody left to come and see him. He was pretty sure that was approaching. Winnie hadn’t come by in _weeks – _the last time she’d visited, she’d told him she’d been attacked on their doorstep, and that she blamed him entirely for it.

Still, Larry had one card left to play. And he was going to use it to tear the lid off this entire cover-up. Maybe, in the process, _someone_ would forgive him.

He went over to the only phone in the building. There was usually a long queue to use it, but it was early. Six thirty in the morning was not normally a time when civilized people called each other, and _most _people in this prison tried to consider themselves civilized. Or, at least, tried to remember that there were such things as civilized people on the outside. Larry, however, didn’t really care if he was bothering this person at six thirty in the morning. They’d take his call. They’d _appreciate _his call.

The phone rang six times before someone answered.

_“Hello?”_

“Hi there, it’s Larry… Larry Kline,” he said. “Listen, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll tell you everything I know. But there’s one condition. And I’ll only talk to you _after _it’s been met.”

_“What do you want?”_

Larry paused for a second. “I want to meet the new Mayor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends part 2!
> 
> I’m really glad that I managed to get SOME of you with the big reveal that Billy was still Flayed. If you go back and reread part 2, particularly in the early stages, there are a few little clues that so far nobody has come out and said that they’ve found, and a few lines that take on a totally different meaning now that you know Billy’s been Flayed this whole time (including my favourite line so far which I originally modified because I was worried I would give the game away too soon and now every time I read it I end up getting the giggles, because, knowing what’s going on, the modification is just painfully obvious and is incredibly unsubtle.) But yeah, there are little things that Billy may or may not have done that take on all kinds of different implications, some more obvious than others. Writing Billy as slightly off from Steve’s perspective has been SO. MUCH. FUN because he’s such an unreliable narrator, especially in the earlier chapters.
> 
> Now, I know you were all so excited to see Flayed!Steve. I did consider it at this particular juncture* when planning this story. BUT I have my reasons for not Flaying Steve (yet*), and I think you’ll like and enjoy them. I also hope there was suitable drama and action and tension in this chapter for you to forgive me in the interim.
> 
> Lastly, I am going to say this: all you wonderful fans of this story are the absolute best. You keep me writing this story. I love reading all your lovely, kind comments. I love hearing your theories about what’s going to happen. I get a little warm fuzzy feeling every time I see a kudos. You guys are absolutely the best fans I could have asked for. So thank you all for coming on this journey with me, and I hope you stick around until the end. I can assure you, it’ll be a wild ride.
> 
> ( * I am saying absolutely nothing about the future state of Steve. You’ll have to read to find out. )


	22. Part 3 Chapter 1: A Friendly Game Of Dungeons And Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PART THREE – RUSSIA, SEPTEMBER 1985

Steve’s eyes fluttered open.

_This was new._

Gone was the strange fluttering ash in the air. Gone was the darkness. There was a single exposed bulb swinging from the ceiling. Well, _ceiling _might be generous. Exposed pipes criss-crossed over his head in a strange geometric pattern. The walls weren’t painted, simply old, exposed, stained concrete. There was visible damp darkening it at the top, moisture coming from the stone almost like sweat.

Steve took in _these _surroundings before taking in anything more immediate. He was lying on a bed of some sorts. It reminded him slightly of a hospital bed, put together using a metal frame that, at some point in its life, must have been painted, but over the years the paint had chipped away, leaving the metal to rust. Perhaps it reminded him of a hospital bed because of something hanging above him – a long thin tube that ended in an IV bag. His clothes were gone, his only protection against the cold being a threadbare blanket.

Steve felt _slightly _like he’d stumbled into a horror movie. If this was a _hospital _of some sorts, it was a far cry from the finest medical care his father’s health insurance could provide which Steve was used to.

_Where the hell was he?_

Things started to come back to him slowly. _Hearing his mom’s voice… Talking Billy into investigating… The sudden realisation that Billy was under the Mind Flayer’s control… Lying on that stone slab in a vortex of darkness… Fire, a bright orange light, a burning sensation… Dragging himself into the mall with Billy following him… Billy walking away to chase down a Gate, leaving him on the floor to die… The lights… The men… The Gate… The General –_

Steve jolted at the memory of the face. He tried to force himself upright –

His hands met against resistance, and Steve realized that something was tying his wrists to the bed. _That made sense. _He wasn’t a patient; he was a prisoner_. _If he was right – and all the evidence was pointing to that rare occurrence – the General wouldn’t have left him alone unless there was no way for him to inadvertently wander off.

Steve tried to force himself to calm down. Billy had given him that counting exercise, hadn’t he? Breathe for three, hold, and then out for three? He could do that. He could do that, and then he could _think…_

_In… two… three… hold… out… two… three…_

_In… two… three… hold… out… two… three…_

_In… two… three… hold… out… two… three…_

_Okay._

What did he know? He was alone in a suspected Russian prison, tied to a hospital bed. Billy wasn’t evidently around, which was a good thing, however Steve was not about to rule out the possibility that Billy had also been captured, which would explain why he hadn’t come back after going for the Gate. Steve also knew that he _wasn’t _dying, which was a significant improvement on the last time he’d checked in with his body. Breathing was coming much more easily, and the pain in his chest had eased. His captors had clearly gone to significant lengths to keep him alive. Which would suggest that they were not about to kill him straight away. Again, an improvement on his previous situation.

However, there was a very large range of activities that were covered by the phrase _‘not about to kill him straight away’_, and based on his previous dealings with Russians, he did not think he had been kept alive for a friendly game of Dungeons and Dragons. Unless they played an extremely immersive version in Russia.

Which begged the question – what did the _Russians _know? They had found him in the Upside Down in Starcourt on the brink of death. They had opened a Gate in Hawkins. They had opened _another _Gate here, at this unknown location. They had seen Steve before after he had infiltrated their base beneath the mall. They knew he’d worked for Scoops Ahoy, and that he’d heard a code. They knew that he knew about the Gate. They knew about Will Byers and Dustin and Hopper. They _possibly_ knew about Billy. _If_ they hadn’t found out anything new in the time that he’d been in the Upside Down – and that was a very big _if_ – then so far, they _didn’t_ know about Eleven. Or at least, they didn’t know that _he _knew anything about Eleven. He could work with that.

He was jolted out of his analysis by the sound of a heavy door opening. A bang, and footsteps, boots with hard soles clicking on the concrete floor out of sight…

Steve’s suspicions about where he was were all but confirmed by the sight of a man he would never forget. Despite not knowing exactly _where _he was, the man’s presence confirmed that this was definitely a Russian facility.

“Welcome back,” said the General – if he even _was _a General, Steve was never entirely sure of military ranks, he’d just… _assumed._

Steve looked at him warily, not saying a word.

“No ‘thank you’?” the General raised an eyebrow. “Our doctors saved your life on my command. You would be dead otherwise. In Russia, that normally deserves gratitude, but perhaps they don’t teach manners in America.”

Steve was not about to be lectured on manners by a man who had shot Robin and broken his finger and four of his ribs. So rather than expressing gratitude, he settled on a question.

“Where am I?” Steve asked, taken aback by how hoarse he was. “Starcourt?”

This had the General laughing. “_Starcourt?_ – Oh, _no,_ Butterscotch, you are not in Starcourt. My men _found _you in Starcourt, certainly, but they brought you here.”

“Which is _where_, exactly?” _God, his dad was right, he was an idiot._

The General gave him a smile that didn’t touch the hardened ice in his eyes. “Russia,” he said coolly.

And there it was. So much for going home.

“I must say, Butterscotch, you _almost_ had me fooled,” the General said, walking closer to the bed. “You’d convinced me that you’d found us in America through… how do you say it? _‘Dumb luck’… _You’d convinced me that you _were _simply a stupid child who’d mistakenly been caught up in our business. But then my men found you in that place. They brought you back here. And now, I am not so sure. So tell me, Butterscotch – _how did you survive there?_”

Steve instinctively recoiled away from the man now looming over him. He felt an extreme reluctance to share any information about Billy with this man. The Russians clearly had no problem with going into the Upside Down and bringing people back, _he_ was living proof of that, and so informing them that there was someone _else_ in the Upside Down would undoubtedly result in them searching for Billy and bringing him back. Which would mean that the Mind Flayer would know _exactly_ where he was. Steve didn’t think he had it in him to try to incinerate himself a second time.

This did, of course, assume that they hadn’t _already_ found Billy.

“Dumb luck?” Steve tried.

The General’s smile dropped to a cold glare. “Now, now, Butterscotch, I thought we were past the lies. Do not make me ask you again.”

The threat in the General’s voice was far too real for Steve to ignore. Memories of what had happened beneath Starcourt flashed through his mind, and he really didn’t want a repeat performance of being tied to a chair with a Russian drilling into his finger or chest.

“I don’t really know what you want me to tell you,” he said. “I went through the Gate, found water, found food, lived like that for _God_ knows how long, until I started getting sick, and then I realised I wasn’t getting any better, so I went to the mall to try and find if there was a way out, and I guess at some point I must have passed out, because I woke up here, and I don’t even _know_ what’s going on.”

The slight hardening behind the General’s eyes told Steve that he had not succeeded in convincing his captor. However, he’d evidently decided to play along with Steve’s explanation as a cold smile spread back across his face.

“Why did you decide to go through the Gate?”

Steve looked at him, slightly incredulous. “Your…” Steve swallowed, not liking the steely glint in the man’s eyes that promised him nothing good. “Your – uh – machine, the thing you used to open the Gate, it was about to blow up. I didn’t want to get blown up _with _it.”

“The _machine_ was blown up by your government,” the General replied. “It was not… _spontaneous,_ is that the word? It was controlled. If you were going to get blown up _with _it, that would mean that your government was prepared to blow _you_ up, too.”

Steve’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t thought about that day in a long time – which had been a very conscious effort. He was good at that; ignoring difficult things, difficult truths, pretending that bad things hadn’t happened. Still, at the General’s words, his chest tightened – for once, nothing to do with his broken ribs. Memories flashed through his mind.

_He was scrambling to his feet, looking around, trying to find a way out. His eyes found Robin’s, looking at him through the glass of the observation deck, and in that moment of staring at her terrified wide eyes, he knew there was no way out._

_“It’s okay,” he could barely hear his own voice over the sound of the machine, let alone Hopper’s protests. “It’s okay. Look after the others. Especially Dustin. It wasn’t his fault. And tell my mom and dad… Tell them… I love them… And I think I get it now. It’s okay. Go. Finish this.”_

_And then Hopper was running back to the observation deck. He saw him briefly struggle with Robin, before turning back to the Gate. It was his only hope. He barely registered his own feet starting to run, practically of their own accord, launching him into the air, before some force slammed into his back and sent him blasting through the Gate and into oblivion._

The General’s voice cut through his thoughts, unwilling as they were. “You see, Butterscotch, your idiocy managed to destroy an operation that was years in the making. Many of my comrades were captured or killed by your government. I myself suffered at their hands, as did you. That alone should have been reason enough for me to let you die, if not to kill you myself. But it’s okay, Butterscotch. Because you are going to help me clean up this mess.”

Steve tried to at least control the look of complete surprise and fear that shot across his face. _Clean up…_ Did the man _seriously_ think he was going to turn on his friends, his family, his _country?_ Steve may not have been the most patriotic person in the world, but this was _treason._ Helping the Russians – whatever that entailed – meant putting the people he cared about most straight into the crosshairs of a group of people that had been quite content to torture him and shoot Robin. Hell, even this single conversation had been made perfectly clear that the only reason he was still alive was because the Russians thought he might be useful.

“Think about it,” the General said softly. “We can help you get back to your home. You want to go home, yes? You want to see your loved ones again?”

Steve was aware that the honest answer to that question was ‘yes’. He was also painfully aware that the chances that he would _make_ it home were slim. The chances of the Russians letting him go at the end of it were non-existent. The chances that they would let him see his friends and family again were only elevated into existence with the caveat of death following immediately afterwards.

“Very well,” the General said, standing up straight. “You must understand, Butterscotch, you will help us, whether you wish to or not. The only question is how much pain you will go through. I suggest you simply cooperate. _Iosif!_”

Another man walked in, tall, his face hidden behind a white surgeon’s mask. He was wearing a long white coat. Steve automatically backed himself up against the pillow as best he could – Russian doctors were not people Steve had particularly fond memories of.

“_Tovarishch Polkovnik Ozerov,_” the doctor said with a salute.

“_Dayte yemu lekarstvo i odezhd__u. Togda skazhi Mikhayu vzyat' yego v tyur'mu_.”

The doctor nodded before turning on his heel and walking out.

“I hope that you enjoy your stay here more than you did in America,” Ozerov said coldly, his voice laden with threat. “For your sake.”

The General turned on his heel and walked out, passing the doctor who was walking back in with a folded bundle of clothes in his arms. They were not the Scoops Ahoy uniform – that had evidently been disposed of, and Steve didn’t care enough to find out what had happened to it. This was, instead, a black shirt and pants, with underwear folded on top. Steve suddenly felt oddly exposed at the sight of the underwear. Although he had the thin blanket on top of him, he was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he was wearing absolutely nothing. It brought home the fact that he was in an unknown location, surrounded by distinctly unfriendly people who had had unfettered access to him while he’d been unconscious.

He flinched as the doctor wordlessly pulled back the covers enough to expose his wrist, bound to the side of the bed by leather straps.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked, unable to keep the slight tremor of fear out of his voice.

The doctor glared at him before taking his wrist and methodically removing the drip that led into his arm. Evidently, the man didn’t speak English. Once the thin needle was removed, Steve found his hands being freed from the restraints.

For a split second, Steve considered running. However, that consideration was eclipsed almost immediately by the practical implications of it – where would he go? If he was right, if he _was _in Russia in some secret Russian military base – which was where all the signs were currently pointing, from the Russian military staff to the biting cold – then simply escaping the base, even on the off-chance that he made it, would still leave him stuck in a foreign country that was decidedly against American citizens. Steve was not famed for keeping up with current affairs, but even _he’d_ caught onto that.

The doctor thrust a glass of water and two white pills into his hands. Steve looked at them blankly, completely at a loss as to what they were or what to do.

“_Vypey!_” the doctor snapped viciously.

Though he didn’t understand the language, Steve’s brain caught up. His eyes snapped to the doctor, wide, and he didn’t hesitate to put the pills in his mouth and swallow them. If they wanted to drug him, they’d do so with or without his consent, and at least _this_ way was less painful than a syringe in his neck or someone forcing the pills down his throat.

The water felt, once again, all too welcome to his mouth, the cold liquid trickling down his dry throat. The sip required to swallow the tablets turned into a gulp. He was aware of the doctor watching him, his chest tightening as he started to feel self-conscious, but the doctor made no move to stop him, instead huffing slightly impatiently as Steve emptied the glass.

As soon as he was finished, the glass was snatched out of his hand to be replaced by the folded set of clothes. Steve could feel straight away that they were, if anything, worse than the cheap polyester uniform of Scoops Ahoy. The fabric was thin and scratchy, loose, and clearly not meant to fit well. He looked blankly at the doctor, who gave him a glare as if to say, _‘are you really going to make me tell you what to do?’_

Steve paused for another second, wondering if he dared ask for privacy. He looked back at the doctor, who raised an eyebrow at him. Whether he knew what was on Steve’s mind or not, it was enough to dissuade Steve from braving it.

Steve pulled the shirt awkwardly around his shoulders before trying to use the blanket as best as possible to keep himself covered while he got the underwear on. He had never normally been one for modesty in the locker room, but then again, the locker room wasn’t full of people who’d wanted to kill him. Humiliate him, yes. Start a fight, also yes. _Kill him…_ not so much.

The doctor gave another huff and an extremely obvious eye roll at Steve’s attempt at keeping himself covered. Steve swung his legs off the bed to get the pants on, and recoiled at the sight of his leg.

The burns he’d inflicted upon himself had scarred. His skin was discoloured, and it looked almost withered. Blotchy red patches still remained; skin still fighting to reform over them. It wasn’t as painful as Steve vaguely remembered it being in the immediate aftermath, but it was sensitive, and Steve was dreading putting the fabric over it.

There was a bang as the door opened again, and another soldier walked in, announcing his presence with words Steve had no hope of understanding. The doctor responded, talking fast, his voice irate. Steve may not have had any understanding of the Russian language, but he was absolutely aware that he was the topic of conversation. Steve found himself casting wary glances between the two men as he pulled on the pants. He was right – they were extremely ill-fitting, the only hope of them staying up being a drawstring around the waist.

“He says you are being slow,” the new Russian soldier said in English.

Steve looked up at him. He tried desperately to inject a little bit of courage into his eyes.

“He also says you are an idiot,” the Russian soldier continued.

Steve didn’t know what to do with that information.

The soldier who spoke English smiled at his blank expression unkindly. “I am beginning to see what he means,” he said. “You’d better hurry up. Comrade Colonel Ozerov wishes to see you on the Bridge.”

Steve looked blankly at the doctor as the soldier turned and started to walk out. The doctor gave him a dismissive gesture with a shake of the head, looking at him with exactly the same expression his teachers at school used to give him when he asked an especially dumb question in class.

“Hurry up,” the soldier called, and Steve jogged to close the distance.

Steve found himself being led through a labyrinthine set of windowless corridors. Every so often, they would pass groups of soldiers dressed in those same dark khaki uniforms with red and gold ornamentation denoting their Soviet affiliation. Sometimes they would be walking somewhere with purpose, sometimes they would be standing sentinel outside a door. However, every single one they passed gave Steve a strange look that had him averting his eyes and trying to duck his face behind a curtain of hair.

The soldier noticed this. “You caused chaos when we brought you back,” the soldier said. “Nobody has ever been found beyond the… what did you call it? _Gate?_”

“Oh,” Steve murmured. So they _hadn’t_ found Billy. Whatever had happened to him to stop him coming back was _not _to do with the Russians.

The soldier looked at him, not breaking his stride. That same unkind smile spread across his face. “So you _do _speak,” he said. “I was wondering if you were dumb as well as stupid.”

Steve opted to keep his mouth shut at that.

“Well, _American, _when the Colonel gave us the order to keep you alive, we were surprised. Even more surprised when he explained that you were responsible for what happened in Hawkins. There is a lot of interest in you, American. I hope, for your sake, that you are worth it.”

Steve felt an all-too-familiar sense of fear and anxiety build in his chest. It had been painfully clear to him from the moment that he’d woken up that he was alive for as long as he was useful.

“Do you have a _name,_ American?” the soldier asked.

Steve looked at the soldier. He was hardly about to give this man his full name, even if he was certain that at least _one_ person in this hellhole already knew it.

“No?” the soldier said, a dubious look on his face. “Very well. Your silence will not make much difference, but, by all means, keep it to yourself for now.”

The soldier gave him a dismissive look before turning back down the corridor.

“If I may give you some advice,” the soldier said. “Learn some Russian. There are not many people here who speak English. I am one, the Colonel is another, but beyond that, there are only a few. You may find your life easier if you can communicate.”

Steve tilted his head slightly towards the ground. The soldier led him through another door and Steve couldn’t help but be stunned by the sight that greeted him.

The closest thing he’d ever seen to the room he was standing in was something from Star Wars. He was standing on a causeway at one end, staring out into an enormous room, built like an aircraft hangar, only bigger. The room was taller than Steve had any gauge for – he’d have guessed at _least_ a hundred feet, but that number felt almost ridiculous. There was a machine, identical to the one he’d seen in Hawkins, blasting a beam of light towards one of the walls. On the floor surrounding it, there were cars, trucks, even a couple of _planes…_ One wall was dominated by a huge overhead door that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Steve had to acknowledge that, _yes,_ as a feat of engineering alone, this was impressive.

Impressive, but downright terrifying.

“Comrade Colonel Ozerov,” the soldier said, and the name dragged Steve’s attention away from the sight before him. “Your _prisoner._”

Steve turned around to see the man he’d previously only thought of as ‘the General’ walking towards him. The monster had a _name_ now. Colonel Ozerov. He was the one in charge.

“_Vy mozhete poyti,_” Ozerov said to the soldier, who nodded with a salute before turning around and walking out, leaving Steve alone.

“What do you think?” Ozerov turned towards Steve, gesturing out towards the hangar with an expectant smile, as though Steve’s opinion actually mattered.

“I…”

Steve trailed off, not sure what to say. They had opened a _Gate._ More than that, they had opened a Gate in _Russia, _where they had built a facility to accommodate getting transportation through the Gate and into the Upside Down. This was _big, _bigger than anything he’d seen before. The Russians weren’t just _experimenting _with the Upside Down like the Department of Energy had been doing, trying to contain the mistake that had leeched into Hawkins like a cancer. No, this was a different mindset altogether. The Russians were _using _the Upside Down. To them, it was little more than a tool.

“What have you done?” Steve managed to force out.

Ozerov laughed. “_This, _Butterscotch, _this _was how we found you,” he said. “The place we found you in… it is a place parallel to our own. A _world_ parallel to ours, a map that we can traverse and still cross the map of our _own_ world. It obeys the laws of space and time, just like ours, but it has none of the laws, the politics, none of the _people. _All we need to do is to open up a Gate at the other end, and you have your path back to your home. We can _help_ you, Butterscotch, but we need to know what you know.”

Steve’s heart was beating fast. “No…” he said softly. “No, that’s not how it works. You have no idea what you’ve done, what you’re walking into. You _can’t_ go in there. You _can’t _keep that thing open.”

Ozerov gave a dismissive laugh.

“No – _please,_ you have to listen to me,” Steve said earnestly. “You keep that thing open, you put _everyone _in danger. I’m not talking about politics, or America, or whatever the _fuck _this war is about now, this goes beyond that.”

Ozerov continued to laugh, turning away from Steve. Steve lunged forward and made to grab Ozerov’s arm, only to find himself restrained by two soldiers. However, it achieved the desired effect. Ozerov turned around, looking at this _teenager _who somehow had the audacity to tell him to close the Gate, to try and _grab _him.

The only person _more_ surprised by Steve’s audacity was Steve himself.

“_Please…_” Steve begged. “You have _no idea_ how dangerous that place is – what’s waiting on the other side of that Gate. But _I _do. I’ve _seen _what that thing can do. You think you can _control _it or something? You _can’t._ The things on the other side of that Gate will come for you, they’ll destroy you and everything else in here. I’m _begging _you, _please,_ close the Gate.”

Ozerov gave him an appraising look. For once, it lacked any overt hostility. A smile spread across his face, and he started to laugh.

“Ah, Butterscotch,” he said genially. “I _knew_ there was a reason I kept you alive.”

-:-

Max took one last look in the mirror at herself.

She had never been one for spending hours fussing over what she wore. Her default criteria for her outfit choices on most days were one: whether she could skate in it, and two: whether she was going to be comfortable in it. This usually ultimately boiled down to the most extensive collection of jeans and hoodies in Hawkins, which were traded for t-shirts and shorts in the summer, but today was not most days. This was her first day at Hawkins High.

She usually didn’t give a shit about what people said about her. She had never cared about what people thought about her clothes before, and she _certainly _wasn’t about to lose any sleep giving a damn about what people said about her skateboarding, but there was something… _different. _Hawkins High had always been _Billy’s _territory. A place he’d ruled as the coolest kid in school after stealing that title unceremoniously from Steve Harrington after the latter was past the point of caring. A place where _everyone _remembered Billy. She remembered the memorial service in August, being invited onto a stage to collect a stupid fucking t-shirt with a number on it like it meant the whole goddamn world to Billy.

A t-shirt that now hung in her closet with more care than most of the rest of her clothes.

She was painfully aware that _everyone_ was going to be looking at her today. Everyone – except for the five people who she _wanted _to see, the five people who had become very distant towards her after a late night the previous month.

She had tried to contact El a couple of times after that night. She’d tried the radio, only to find it suddenly changed to a different channel. She’d also tried calling the house one day to hear a timid-voiced El answer, telling her that _“Hop says I’m not allowed to see you anymore.”_

She’d had to hang up at that. She absolutely had not been found by her mom ten minutes later screaming into her pillow. She was Mad Max. She did not _scream into pillows._

On her mom’s advice, she hadn’t tried contacting Lucas. She’d given him _space,_ let him go and be miserable. As Lucas had said, this wasn’t some little screw-up. This was _real _– a very real and very serious problem in their relationship that came down to a total lack of trust between them. When she’d tried to explain what had happened to her mom as best she could, (leaving out the parts about using her superpowered best friend to open interdimensional Gates to recover her hitherto believed-to-be-dead stepbrother whose mind was under the control of a terrifying shadow monster,) her mom had come back to her with an arm around her shoulders and a soft word about how trust was the most important thing in a relationship, and how losing that trust had ultimately led to her own divorce.

_Give him space. Let him be angry until he can’t be anymore. And when the time is right, start building up that trust again._

Max had ditched the hoodie for the day – the last of the summer sun was persisting enough that it wouldn’t be a problem – but she’d chosen jeans and a plain black t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. It was an extremely simple look – hopefully not enough to draw too much undue attention to her, but not a style that would make her feel incredibly self-conscious at the endless eyes that she was sure to feel on her.

Her mom had offered to drive her to school that one day. It wasn’t likely to be a regular thing – Max knew her mom had work that usually had her leaving the house before seven, but she’d negotiated a late morning, just to drive her to her first day of high school.

On the drive, Max thought about what might have been different if everything over the summer had just… _never happened. _For one thing, Billy would probably be driving her. She’d be excited rather than terrified, she’d arrive in the parking lot with barely a goodbye to Billy, running over to Lucas, and Will and Dustin and Mike and _El,_ excited to share her first day at school together. She’d probably arrive to see Nancy and Jonathan bringing Will and Mike, probably with Lucas in tow, and Dustin would undoubtedly be arriving with Steve who would be offering words of wisdom that Dustin would undoubtedly ignore. Depending on Billy’s mood, there might be a couple of snide comments thrown Steve’s way, which _Steve_ would undoubtedly ignore. Robin and Steve _might_ have grown up enough to have gone on a date or two, but Max would not have put money on it. They would all probably still be teasing Dustin about his girlfriend, and he’d probably still be talking about her like she was the greatest person on the planet.

Now, though, she had no idea what to expect.

Max was very clear on her new stance as the pariah of their group. She knew El’s cover story – that had been settled before Max had been ostracised. El’s official name was Jane Eleanor Hopper, who went by El, who had moved to Hawkins from Europe to live with her biological father, Jim Hopper, after the death of her mother. Hopper had previously had no idea that the child existed, the result of a drunken one-night stand from his years in New York. Hopefully, those particular details were not going to be relevant to El’s first day at Hawkins High, but the crucial bit of information was that El was _not_ from America, which covered her unease with the English language as well as the gaps in her knowledge about things like American history. Anything else she struggled with could simply be put down to the language barrier and _‘doing things differently in Europe.’_

Max’s mom pulled into the parking lot and saw her off with a kiss on the cheek. Max slipped out of the car, bag over one shoulder and skateboard under her arm.

Something caught her eye and she felt a horrible, unfamiliar twist in her stomach at the sight of Lucas.

He was standing with Mike, Will and Dustin. None of them had noticed her, too busy chatting amongst themselves. She found herself coming to a halt, wishing that she could stop staring, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from them.

Lucas was clearly making some stupid joke about something or other, which had the other three laughing. Will had that slightly exhilarated look on his face, as though he was still ever so slightly surprised to be a part of the group, even after all these years, even after everything. Mike almost immediately took over talking as soon as Lucas had started laughing, desperate to be the centre of attention. Dustin laughed for as long as it took for the attention to be solely on Mike, but Max could see his face drop slightly, even from a distance, his eyes take on a more polite look, like he wasn’t really listening. She’d known, even before her _‘banishment’_, that Dustin hadn’t been doing well. He’d spent long periods of time with his radio switched off – an action _he_ would normally get the most annoyed about. It occurred to her that she’d actually barely seen him since Starcourt – there was the occasional Dungeons and Dragons game, the ‘_code pink_’ that he’d called at Hopper’s house, and, of course, his discovery of El and Max opening Gates in the woods. When she _had_ seen him, he’d been more subdued than normal, talking only when he was spoken to – again, another rarity with Dustin.

She suddenly realised Will had seen her. She met his gaze, giving him an uncomfortable smile which he didn’t return. He gave her an unreadable look, before looking at the others and saying something to them, before turning and leading the way inside. They followed without a glance in her direction.

Max watched them go before reaching up and pulling the scrunchie out of her hair. The ponytail hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

-:-

Dustin didn’t have especially high hopes for his first day of high school, but this had exceeded his lowest expectations.

He had known it was going to be bad from the second they’d been ushered into the gym for assembly. The principal had opened with yet _more_ words about Starcourt over the summer, _as though there was anything left to say on the subject that hadn’t been said sixteen or seventeen times already, _which was followed by a moment of silence for the victims. The school had provided a grief counsellor for the term. Dustin recognised the grief counsellor, it was the same one Hawkins Middle had provided when Will had supposedly been found dead.

The day had only gone downhill from there. They’d had a morning of introduction into high school life in their homeroom, where they’d been forced to sit alphabetically. That meant he was sat next to El. Dustin didn’t _want_ to hate El, but he couldn’t ignore how reckless she had been with her powers.

Things had been… _complicated_ with El since that night. The Party had all but kicked out Max – Dustin was under the impression that they _would_ have done had it not been for the fact that Max picked up on the fact that she wasn’t wanted and hadn’t made any attempt to contact them. Dustin wasn’t the only person furious at her. Mike had spent most of the following week after that evening in the woods screaming at anyone who would listen that he’d been _“right all along”_ and that _“Max was abusing El’s powers.”_ Will had been much more subdued over it – Dustin hadn’t tried to talk to him properly about it, but he suspected that Will would have a much more personal stake in those actions. It could not have been easy to see two people he considered some of his best friends opening themselves and everyone else up to the risk of what must have been the worst experience of his life. There were still days when Will would go quiet, staring blankly at the treeline, completely lost in thought.

Lucas was far easier to read. He had been completely floored by breaking up with Max. It wasn’t a problem that needed fixing, or for her to try and win him back somehow. Dustin was aware he’d gone radio silent for days after the breakup. Lucas’ feelings towards El were inconsequential. _Something_ had changed, that much was obvious, but Lucas hadn’t even considered where his feelings on El landed.

Which left Mike. On the one hand, the brunt of the anger Mike was feeling was directed at Max. However, much like Max and Lucas, Mike had discovered that this particular betrayal of trust had more implications than simply doing something stupid. This wasn’t an impulse decision that he hadn’t liked – this had been methodical, consistent, and in full knowledge of the risks that they were facing. And El had shut him out. Mike had finally seemed to realise that El was capable of making her own decisions, that she had her own autonomy over her life, only to discover her opening Gates like it was nothing. He appreciated her side of it all – she’d wanted to help her friend – but she’d _chosen_ to keep him out. She’d _chosen_ to do this without telling him. She’d _chosen_ to keep this a secret, to lie to him consistently, to turn any suspicion around onto him as though he was getting upset about nothing. All the good intentions in the world couldn’t hide the fact that her actions had torn him apart.

The last Dustin had heard, Mike had told El that he needed some time to work out how he felt. As far as Dustin was aware, he _still _needed time, which left his relationship with El in limbo.

The introduction into high school life turned into an English class, before a History class took them into lunch. Dustin felt almost radioactive walking into the cafeteria. For the most part, the Party had avoided being stared at in the corridors, but the cafeteria was a different beast entirely. The four of them could practically _feel _stares boring into them as they sat down on the end of one of the tables. Dustin could have sworn he’d heard his name whispered by people as they’d passed.

He tried not to care. For the first time in his life, he was counting down the minutes until school was over.

“Hey,” a voice said behind Dustin, and they turned around to see Nancy and Jonathan standing there holding trays. “Mind if we join you?”

Mike pointedly rolled his eyes. “Nancy, we don’t need you to come and sit with us,” he groaned, though there was no real heat behind it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I cramping your _style?_” she smiled sweetly as she sat down.

“It would help if Mike actually _had_ any style,” Lucas grinned.

“If it helps, it’s a one-time offer,” Jonathan said with a smile, trying to defuse the situation. “We won’t make you seem like freaks _too _much.”

“Yeah, I’ll save the embarrassing big sister routine for your first high school party,” Nancy’s smile was decidedly no longer sweet.

Mike groaned, folding his arms and burying his face in them.

“So how’s your first day of high school going?” Jonathan asked, ignoring Mike.

“It’s okay,” Will said. “Nobody’s asked about the summer yet.”

Jonathan’s expression fell. “Give it time,” he said bitterly. “We’ve had a few people ask us about the Holloways.”

“Oh, that’s _nothing,_” Nancy gave a small huff. “I have English with Robin, and _everyone_ was asking her about Steve before class.”

“Really?” Mike asked, lifting his head out of his hands. “But they weren’t _together,_ were they?”

“They weren’t,” Dustin said quietly, breaking his silence. “She wasn’t interested.”

Nancy sighed, stabbing at the food on her tray. “Yeah, but that’s the thing about high school. Give people one plus one, leave it in the rumour factory for a few days and you’ll end up with blueberry pie. I nearly lost it at Connor Morrison when he asked her how long they’d been sleeping together.”

Dustin’s eyebrows shot up. He’d _noticed _the whispers surrounding them all day, but if Nancy was to be believed, things weren’t likely to get better anytime soon. He glanced around the cafeteria, trying to find Robin, but she’d evidently chosen not to eat lunch there. The rest of the ‘band geeks’ were sat on a table together, quite content to ignore and be ignored by the rest of the school, but there was no sign of Robin amongst them –

He froze at the sight on the next table though. A lone figure with flaming red hair was sat picking through her lunch.

It was the first time Dustin had _seen _Max all day. He assumed she must have been at the assembly, and in his other classes, but he hadn’t noticed her at all.

He hadn’t spoken to Max since the day he’d found them in the woods. At first, it was all he could think about – he didn’t _want_ to think about how angry he was at her and her selfishness, but it was all-consuming. It had dominated just about every thought he’d had in the days afterwards, a refreshing change from the empty black hole that the night at Starcourt had left. It had filled it with a fire that had burnt bright, given him energy, taken over his mind, but Dustin _knew _it wasn’t healthy. He’d _tried_ to put it out, but it was like turning on a sprinkler to douse a wildfire. It had burnt until there was nothing left, no _energy_ that Dustin had left to give it, before burning out into smouldering remains.

But seeing Max, sat alone, looking so stereotypically _pitiful_… Immediately, Dustin felt a wave of sympathy wash over him. And somehow, _somehow_, that breathed new life into that fire of anger and hate.

_She made her bed. She can sleep in it._

She looked up and straight over at them. She’d been watching them – _for how long, exactly?_ She met his eyes and gave him an unreadable look. Dustin felt his gaze harden involuntarily, and he turned away and back towards the conversation.

-:-

Newly appointed Mayor Paul Harrington was not sure how he was supposed to feel as he was led into a cold room inside Indiana State Prison. The private room for this was usually reserved for prisoners talking to lawyers, but apparently, the Department of Energy had more pull in Indiana’s penal system than he’d given them credit for.

Apparently, there was still information that the Department of Energy needed on Starcourt Industries before they were prepared to close the door on the whole affair. And, _apparently,_ Paul’s least favourite person in the world was prepared to provide that information in exchange for a single conversation with him. Paul had decided that he was prepared to agree to this, if only for the opportunity to tell Larry Kline _exactly_ what he thought of him.

The door opened, revealing two guards in blue shirts guiding in an incredibly dishevelled figure in an orange jumpsuit. Larry Kline’s hands were in cuffs. The former Mayor was led to a chair in front of Paul, the guards locking a small metal ring on the table between them around the handcuffs before leaving.

“We’ll just be outside if you need anything,” one of the guards said to Paul, who nodded at them before turning back to Kline with a stony expression.

Prison did not suit former Mayor Lawrence Kline. He was thinner than he’d been in years. Hair that was previously kept tidily swept back and styled away from his face now hung lank and long around his forehead. Stubble on his chin had grown into something vaguely resembling the beginnings of a patchy beard. Fine age lines had deepened, shadows under his eyes darkened, combined with a paler face giving him a slightly skull-like look.

“Hey Paul,” Kline said in a voice that sounded weary with age. “I, uh… I see you took my job.”

Paul’s scowl deepened, his cold grey eyes hardened into ice.

“It’s good to see you,” Kline made a brave attempt at a smile.

“I have _nothing_ to say to you,” Paul said coldly, his clear voice slicing through Larry’s world-weary murmurs like a knife. His expression didn’t change, his voice was quiet, but it was enough to cut through the _‘pleasantries’_.

“I know,” Kline said softly. “You hate me. You made that clear in your campaign. I _‘killed your son’ _and all that, right?”

Paul’s expression, if possible, became even more disgusted.

“I was _following_ it, you know,” Kline made another attempt at a smile. “You should dial back the sentiment for your re-election campaign, but it certainly worked wonders this time round. And, honestly, a masterstroke to blame _me_ for everything, distancing yourself very effectively from an elitist administration that you helped prop up the second it became toxic.”

Paul let out a cold, humourless laugh. “_Toxic?_” he repeated incredulously. “Thirty people _died_ thanks to your tidy little paycheck.”

“It wasn’t _like_ that-” Kline started to groan.

“_Really?_” Paul scoffed. “Then what _was_ it like? Exactly _how much_ was it that they gave you? How much was _my son’s life_ worth to you?”

“There _was_ no bribe,” Kline sighed.

Paul’s eyebrows shot up. Kline looked at him darkly.

“There wasn’t a bribe,” Kline repeated. “There was no fault, no safety oversight…”

“Larry, I swear to God-”

“They’re not charging me with _corruption,_ they’re charging me with _treason._” Larry explained. “Starcourt Industries… it’s not some dodgy company. Ask… Ask Harry Beaumont. He went over the plans as well. He’s _good_ at spotting faults in building plans, he would have _spotted_ something like that. I don’t know what the hell _happened_ in that mall, but I don’t think it was a gas explosion.”

Paul let out an incredulous huff, shaking his head in disbelief.

“_Think about it, _Paul,” Kline said. “There’s no paper trail of the money, Winnie didn’t _know_ about the money, Harry looked over the plans and saw _nothing_ wrong with it… You can’t tell me that shit adds up to you.”

Paul’s glare took on a dubious expression.

“Look, Starcourt Industries,” Kline said. “They’re an international corporation. They’re… They’re working with the Soviets or something. And the _government…_ It _knows_ about this. And _something _happened that night, and suddenly, everyone who might know _anything_ about it ends up dead. Tom Holloway and his family… Do you _honestly_ think they were just in the mall, covering some stupid story about the ‘changing landscape of Hawkins’? On the _fourth of July?_ He and that other journalist… they must have been looking into it. They must have gotten too close, and so they killed them. And just to make sure that everyone who _might_ know anything about it stays quiet… they kill Tom’s family, too. And… And your _kid_… he’s close to Joyce Byers’ kids, who’s close to Jim Hopper. Hopper and Byers… they know about it, they’re in on the cover-up. They came to my office, they broke my _goddamn nose,_ and they come to my house and they take… They take these papers, these _land deeds…_ It’s my protection against these people. They’re _in _on this shit. And your kid… he must have gotten too close, so they killed him too.”

Kline’s tone became more and more frenzied as he talked, while Paul’s dubious expression intensified. At these final words, Paul found himself laughing in spite of himself. It wasn’t a kind laugh, it was a high, cold sound that echoed off the plaster walls.

“I can’t _believe_ you, Larry,” Paul said. “I mean, do you even _hear_ yourself? Soviets, cover-ups…”

“I _know _it sounds crazy-”

“It sounds _more_ than crazy,” Paul scoffed over him. “It _sounds_ made-up. It sounds like a desperate attempt to convince me that, _somehow,_ you’re not responsible for the deaths of my son and one of our closest friends. And do you know what, Larry? It’s _sick._ Linda and I are _finally_ starting to move on. And you _summon me_ up to fucking _Michigan_ to tell me this ridiculous _bullshit_ – for what? So you’ll get me to turn around and say _‘oh, don’t worry, Larry, it’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to kill all those people’_? It’s pathetic. At least have the fucking balls to own up to what you’ve done.”

“Paul, _please, _just listen to me-”

Paul stood up and started to walk towards the door. His hand froze on the door handle, and he looked back at Kline, who had a desperate expression on his face.

“I hope you rot in here for the rest of your life, Larry,” Paul said coldly. “And _then…_ I hope you rot in Hell.”

He turned the door handle and walked out into the corridor, ignoring Kline’s desperate pleas as they echoed down the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took me a little while to write, because I just wasn't very happy with how a lot of things landed. Absolutely none of the high school stuff was working in the slightest, (which was not helped by me failing to know anything about how American high schools actually run from a technical perspective beyond what was covered in Mean Girls,) and basically I couldn't decide just how I wanted to set up that whole new dynamic between the Party. It's like... I know where I want it to GO, but I don't know where I want it to be at this exact point on that journey. Also, writing Steve waking up in Russia was weirdly difficult to get right. It turns out accurately representing a language barrier has an extra layer of fun when you're relying on Google Translate to give you the occasional words you want to include. My personal favourite English to Russian to English translation was when I put the word "drink" into Google Translate and checked its translation against itself and it was cheerfully telling me to cook something.
> 
> Also, speaking of language and culture barriers, I realised halfway through writing the chapter that I'd written 'trousers' rather than 'pants'. My apologies for any iterations that I may have missed.


	23. Part 3 Chapter 2: What The Russians Don’t Know

Steve’s heart sank at the sight of the smile on Ozerov’s face.

_So much for staying quiet._

His despair, however, morphed into confusion as Ozerov started laughing. It was the same laugh he’d given at Steve’s desperate rambling about the _“U.S.S. Butterscotch, it’s out of this world, I’m telling you!”_ On this occasion, though, Steve didn’t try joining in the laughter. He knew he’d been misunderstood. And if there was _any_ chance he could talk them into shutting the Gate, he would.

“_Please_,” Steve gasped, slightly breathless. “You don’t understand. There’s… There’s another _world _on the other side of that Gate. And it’s not like _our_ world… It’s full of _monsters. _I’m telling you, if you leave that Gate open, they’ll _come-_”

“You hear that?” Ozerov said in English to the soldiers around them. “Monsters. _Monstry, on govorit._”

The soldiers around Steve laughed, which only left Steve feeling more desperate.

“I know it sounds _crazy!_” Steve was practically screaming. “I wouldn’t believe it either, but I’ve _seen_ them. I’ve _seen_ what they can do, they’ll kill _everyone _in this place! You leave that Gate open and you’re… You’re as good as dead.”

Ozerov continued to laugh, turning away from Steve.

“_Please,_ you _have_ to believe me!” Steve said, struggling against the soldiers holding him back.

“Ah, Butterscotch, I _do_ believe you,” Ozerov said, turning back to Steve. “I believe you because we already _know._”

Steve froze, his eyes widening in shock.

“We _want _them to come,” Ozerov explained. “What you Americans have failed to understand is that these _monsters,_ as you call them, can be _useful._”

Steve felt his stomach drop in horror. “No…” he breathed.

Ozerov gave Steve a smile, the warmest smile he’d ever given him, which made Steve’s insides freeze.

“Come with me,” he said in a tone that was _almost_ friendly. “Let me show you something.”

Steve felt the hands holding his arms let go, and Steve found himself falling forwards, barely catching himself with a stagger. Ozerov turned and walked out a door at the opposite end of the causeway. Steve felt a hand shoving his back and followed.

Further windowless corridors turned into a series of stairs that descended down far enough to pass out of Steve’s sight. The yellow fluorescent tubes evidently stopped at some point, because the lower levels were shrouded in shadow, with the limited light not sufficient to penetrate through it. Ozerov led the way down the stairs, with Steve following, his two guards behind him.

They didn’t quite descend into the darkness when Ozerov stopped and unlocked a heavy metal door.

Having no expectations did somewhat limit Steve’s surprise when he found himself standing in a large workshop. Huge components of machinery stood in the middle of the room on the concrete floor. People were working on the machines, dressed in uniforms identical to the one Steve was wearing. There were soldiers around the room, too, and they seemed to be the only ones with any protective gear. Steve was no expert on safe mechanical practices, but from the few movies he’d watched on the subject, he was fairly certain that anyone operating a blowtorch was _supposed_ to have some form of face covering, and yet there were people using tools far more dangerous than blowtorches with little more to protect them than the thin clothes on their backs.

It took Steve all of a second to realise what exactly he was looking at. His limited knowledge of the Soviet Union and the rise of Communism in Russia brought to mind forced labour camps, where dissidents and political prisoners were sent to work for the regime until they died. Steve recognised some of the larger parts of machinery in the room – at least, he _thought_ they looked like parts of the Key that the Russians had evidently recreated.

Steve probably _shouldn’t _have been surprised by this. The Russians had gone to enormous lengths to create extremely dangerous machines. Even if they _weren’t _overly fussed about the welfare of their citizens, it stood to reason that, given the choice, the Russians would choose to use dispensable, _disposable_ people for the hardest, most dangerous jobs. Cutting out the manual labour costs was simply an added bonus.

It also stood to reason that Steve was _not_ the only prisoner in this hellhole.

“You’re building another one of those machines,” Steve said quietly. It was a statement, not a question.

Ozerov smiled at him, that same, unsettlingly sinister smile. “Well done,” he said. “You’re not as stupid as you look, Butterscotch.”

Horror dawned on Steve. His chest tightened. He could practically hear Ozerov’s voice in his ear, reiterating words that Steve only now fully understood.

_All we need to do is to open up a Gate at the other end, and you have your path back to your home._

“You can’t…” Steve breathed. “No… I won’t let you…”

Once again, Ozerov laughed at his protests. “This is why I _like_ you, Butterscotch,” he laughed. “So full of _fight._ But this will happen. And you _will _help us.”

“No, I-”

Steve didn’t see the fist as it slammed into his stomach, one of the soldiers behind him gripping his shoulder tightly.

“_Dostatochno!_” Ozerov snapped at the soldier as his elbow swung back again for a second blow.

Steve hadn’t been prepared for how much the punch would hurt. It had slammed into his stomach just below the ribcage, and Steve just managed to hold back a whimper. The air was knocked straight out of his lungs, and for a second, Steve’s mind went blank. Flashes of gasping for air on the forest floor, vines all around him, forcing barely cooperating lungs to drag air into themselves crossed his mind, before his lungs finally expanded of their own accord, and the memory was gone.

He was barely upright before he found himself being dragged towards someone else – a soldier with a single star on the epaulets on his shoulder.

“_Vot novyy rabotnik,_” Ozerov was saying. “_Ty dolzhen sokhranit' yego zhivym. On mozhet byt' polezen. Skazhi mne vse, chto on govorit._”

Steve watched as the new soldier gave Ozerov a single nod, before grabbing him by the arm. Steve, still slightly winded from the punch, didn’t resist as he found himself being dragged away, but cast a single glance back at Ozerov, who looked terrifyingly satisfied by the arrangement. Steve held his gaze for another second before Ozerov turned and led the two soldiers out, closing the heavy metal door behind them.

A barked command in Russian snapped Steve’s attention back to the Russian who seemed to be in charge of the workshop. He looked over at the soldier, but the command didn’t seem to be for him. Steve found himself being pushed towards someone in a uniform identical to his own, standing in front of a large cylinder with seemingly endless wires wrapped around it.

A short conversation ensued between the Russian and the prisoner. Steve, despite not speaking a word of Russian himself, couldn’t help but notice the slightly hesitant way the prisoner seemed to respond. He sounded slightly like Robin had done on the one occasion he’d heard her try her hand at conversational Russian. There was a slightly stilted quality to his phrases.

Eventually, the Russian turned his back on the two prisoners and walked away from them, leaving Steve alone with the prisoner. Steve watched him walk away, looking at his retreating back as he was left standing with no idea what exactly he was supposed to do.

“Hey.”

The voice caught Steve’s attention, and he turned around. The prisoner he’d been left with was looking at him strangely, almost analytically.

“English?” the prisoner said questioningly. “_Français? Espa__ñol?_”

Steve looked blankly at him. “…What?” he asked, completely overwhelmed.

“English, then,” the prisoner said with a smile. “Thank _God._”

The prisoner spoke with an English accent. His hair was a light brown, with an overgrown quality to it. A stubble that was on its way to becoming a beard covered the lower half of his face. His eyes were green, looking dimmed beneath the purple shadows under his eyes. Fine lines were etched across his face that didn’t appear to correlate wholly with his age.

“My French isn’t great, and my Spanish is frankly offensive,” the prisoner said, his voice sounding bone-tired behind the joke. “But if you’re English, it makes sense that he put you with me.”

Steve looked at the man blankly as he bent down to look at something on the machine in front of him.

“W-What’s going on?” Steve asked.

The prisoner gave a beckoning gesture towards Steve, who crouched down beside him.

“We’re working together,” the prisoner said with a smile. “On… _this_.”

He gestured towards the machine in front of him, and the various other components around them. Steve looked around blankly, before turning back to the prisoner in front of him.

“I… I don’t _understand…_”

The prisoner in front of him looked at Steve with a slightly worried expression on his face. Steve could feel that his own expression was a _long_ way past terrified, and he could feel the panic rising in his chest.

“…How long have you _been _here?” the prisoner asked dubiously.

“What?” Steve asked breathlessly, frowning at him.

“In this prison,” the prisoner clarified. “How long have you _been _here?”

Steve looked at the prisoner, his eyes wide, the panic starting to overwhelm him. “I don’t – I don’t _know,_” Steve gasped out. “I don’t even know where _‘here’_ is! I woke up in this… this _hospital _bed about an hour ago, or maybe _less_ than that, and then this _General _– or _Colonel_ – or whatever, I don’t know, I think his name is Ozerov or something, he – he comes in and starts asking me about stuff that I don’t even know the answer to, and then he shows me… he shows me this big _Gate _thing, and tells me I’m now _working_ for him, and he brings me _here_ and now I don’t even know where I _am,_ or what’s going _on,_ because the last time I checked, I was practically _dead _somewhere in America, or _sort of_, and suddenly I’m _not,_ and I don’t-”

“Okay, okay, keep your voice down!” the prisoner hissed, casting a wary glance around him. “You’re panicking-”

“_Of course I’m fucking panicking!_” Steve hissed back, matching the prisoner’s volume.

“Okay, so we’ll take a nice deep breath,” the prisoner tried for a more soothing tone. “In… and out…”

Steve tried his best to copy him, his breath coming out shaky.

“Okay, we’ll try one more. In… and out…”

This one had a slightly better effect on Steve.

“One more for luck,” the prisoner said, trying for a smile. “In… and out…”

Steve let out a long breath before opening his eyes. He didn’t remember closing them in the first place.

“Okay,” the prisoner said, still smiling tentatively at Steve. “Let’s start at the beginning. My name’s Charlie.”

He offered his hand out for Steve. Steve took it, noticing just how much his hands were trembling.

“Steve,” he said, his voice shaking almost as much as his voice.

“Nice to meet you, Steve,” Charlie said with a smile. “So you’re from America?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathed. “And… And that’s where I _thought_ I was, at least, _kind of,_ until I woke up _here…_”

“Yes, well,” Charlie glanced around the room. “This _isn’t_ America, as you’ve probably gathered. As far as I can _tell_, we’re in Russia.”

“Uh… okay…” Steve stammered.

“So you don’t know much about this place, right?”

Steve shook his head.

“Well, it’s a prison,” Charlie said, the first unforced smile spreading across his face, “and we’re the prisoners, to start off with.”

“Thanks, I worked _that_ _much_ out,” Steve said sarcastically.

Charlie gave a small laugh. “Good to see you’ve got a sense of humour,” he grinned. “Most of the people here are either traitors or defectors from the Soviets, or else are prisoners of war. We’ve all been put to work to build… _this._ My best guess is that this is some kind of black site, and what we’re building is some kind of weapon.”

Steve felt no small amount of relief that Charlie seemed to, for the most part, be a friendly face, but he wasn’t about to reveal to a complete stranger that he knew _exactly_ what they were building.

“But… You don’t understand, I _can’t_ build this!” Steve hissed.

Charlie looked at him with a desperately pitying look. “Steve, you don’t have a _choice._”

Steve gave him a burning look. “If I start doing this…” he stammered, trying to make him understand, feeling tears prick his eyes. “If I _help_ them… They’ll kill my _friends_…”

The look Charlie was giving him had all too much understanding, and Charlie rested a hand gently on his arm.

“I get it,” Charlie said. “_Really, _I do. And it is _admirable_ how you don’t want to put your friends in danger. But if you _don’t_ do this… they’ll just kill _you_.”

Steve closed his eyes, trying not to let himself completely break down. The reality of his situation was sinking in. Charlie seemed to recognise that Steve needed a minute. He used a hand on Steve’s shoulder to turn him round to face the machine, holding out some wires between them so that it would look to any passing soldier like Charlie was teaching Steve.

“So how did you get mixed up in all this?” Charlie eventually broke the silence. “You barely look old enough to be at school, let alone to be a VIP.”

Steve gave Charlie a blank look, while Charlie smiled at him mischievously.

“_Very Important Prisoner_,” Charlie elaborated. “I’ve seen that Colonel exactly twice since I got here, and one of those occasions was him bringing _you _in here. So go on, how does someone as young as you end up in this place? Is your dad the _President_ or something?”

Steve’s heart clenched at the thought of his father. “No, he’s not…” Steve sighed. “But I guess he’s _part _of the reason I’m here. Like… I graduated high school in the summer, and I didn’t have any offers from colleges, so my dad basically told me to get a job or get out. Only place that would take me was this ice cream joint in this new mall opening up in my town. Turns out, it’s just my luck that the mall is a cover for some secret Russian base underground that was building _something,_ and I stumble into this base with my friend, and then we get caught by Ozerov, and hey, now I’m _here_.”

Charlie couldn’t help a small laugh that left his lips. “Wow…” he breathed. “That’s… I have _so _many questions.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at Charlie. “Oh yeah?”

Charlie looked at Steve like he was seeing him in a whole new light. “How did you even… just _stumble_ upon a top-secret Russian base?”

Steve gave a small shrug. He still wasn’t about to trust Charlie with _everything,_ so he settled on the story that Ozerov hadn’t believed. “My delivery didn’t come. So my friend and I went looking in one of the rooms the loading docks – we hadn’t checked there before, it was always locked, but that night they must have forgotten to lock it, and so we checked in there to see if we could find it. The door closed behind us and when we were trying to open it again, we pushed a button that turned the whole room into an elevator, and we couldn’t get out or make it go back up again, so when the Russians opened the door, we ended up in this secret Russian base underground.”

Charlie looked at him with that same incredulous amusement. “That’s… That sounds _insane._ Like something out of a film or something.”

Steve gave a snort of laughter. “You’re not wrong.”

“Seriously, if you weren’t here right now, I would not believe a _word_ of that.”

“I’m _still_ not sure if I believe it,” Steve gave him a nervous grin.

Charlie chuckled. “I mean… The security must have been pretty lax for you to just… _walk in_ like that…”

“I mean, when the elevator door opened again, we weren’t sure what was going on, so my friend and I hid on the roof. But yeah, we managed to walk through that base for quite a while before they even realised that we were there.”

“Long enough to find out it was a top-secret Russian base, huh?”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah.”

“And so they catch you and ship you out here?”

Steve looked at him for a moment. He looked into those green eyes, trying to decide just how much to tell Charlie. After everything with Billy, he certainly wasn’t inclined to go sharing _everything_ with the first friendly face that showed itself to him. He knew that the Russians were interested in what he knew, and there was _plenty_ he wanted to keep to himself until he knew a bit more about what was going on. On the other hand, however, if Charlie _had_ been planted by the Russians to try and get information out of him, then there was a certain amount that they already knew – including that he’d been found on the other side of the Gate.

“Not exactly,” Steve said. “The Russians, they… they were building this _Gate._ It’s… It’s like this big crack in the wall, only it glows red and it’s terrifying. They built this machine to open it. I escaped through it, and woke up in… in this _other world._”

Charlie snorted with laughter. “Okay, _now_ you’re messing with me.”

Steve looked at him while Charlie fiddled with the wires in his hands, twisting two of them together with a pair of pliers before he realised Steve was staring. Charlie looked at him, a completely disbelieving grin on his face like Steve had told him the funniest joke on earth.

“Really?” he said derisively. “_Another world?_ You expect me to believe _that?_”

Steve just held his gaze, trying to keep his expression serious. Charlie’s grin faltered, a flicker of doubt igniting behind his eyes.

“You’re being _serious_, aren’t you?” he said to Steve. “You really _believe _that.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah,” Steve sighed. “And _you _don’t.”

Charlie shook his head as he looked back at the wires in his hands. “I… Steve, I believe you went through _something_ with the Russians, otherwise you wouldn’t _be _here. But _that…_ Steve, that’s _crazy._”

Steve shook his head, looking down at his hands. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I know.”

Charlie went back to doing _whatever_ he was doing with the wires, and Steve watched him for a minute. He watched as Charlie started twisting wires together before placing them against the metal cylinder, soldering them into place.

“What are you doing?” he asked as Charlie soldered two ends of copper wire together.

Charlie looked over at him, a strange look in his eyes.

“Not an engineer, are you, Steve?” he said in exactly the same tone of voice Steve had encountered from so many people in his life, from his teachers to his father, a tone of voice that was always barely disguising the belief that Steve was an idiot.

Steve shook his head blankly.

Charlie gave him a small smile, reaching out towards a set of papers that Steve hadn’t been in the state of mind to notice.

“We’re building _this,_” Charlie said, pushing the papers between them. “Still not exactly clear what it _is,_ but we’re only likely to get _one_ part of the machine at any one time. Something about not allowing prisoners from countries hostile towards the Soviets _too _much access to whatever they’re trying to do.”

Steve looked down at the papers between him and Charlie, taking everything in. They were blueprints, with what Steve could only assume was instructions.

“It’s all in Russian,” Steve observed.

Charlie looked at him with a dubious grin on his face. “Yes, Steve. We _are, _after all, in Russia.”

“I…” Steve swallowed. “I don’t _speak_ Russian. I can _barely_ read English, let alone whatever _this_ says.”

Charlie’s eyebrows shot up, and that slightly sympathetic, piteous look was back. He grabbed a pencil from next to him and tore a strip off the edge of one of the papers.

“You’re going to need to learn, then,” Charlie said as he started writing something down on the strip of paper. “These are the only instructions you’re likely to get. If you can’t _read_ them, you’re not going to be able to _help._ And Steve, I’ll tell you this much for free: With these people, you’re only alive for as long as you’re _useful._ So learn some Russian. Some words, once you learn to read them, are fairly easy to work out, they’re very similar to English. I’ll help you as best I can for now, but you can’t guarantee that we’re _always_ going to be working together. So take _this._”

Charlie handed him the strip of torn paper. Steve looked down and saw that it had a rough translation of all the characters of the Russian alphabet on it into the equivalent English sounds.

“Learn it,” Charlie said. “Memorise it. Keep it safe. Hide it somewhere. If you can’t _read_ those instructions, you’re as good as dead.”

“But…” Steve protested as he folded up the paper. “Charlie, like you said, I’m _not_ an engineer. I don’t know what I’m _doing_, I was never into science at school or anything, I-”

“Steve,” Charlie said, trying to give him a reassuring smile. “It’s like I said before, _you_ _don’t have a choice._”

“But…” Steve swallowed again. “I don’t… I _can’t_ do this. And even if I _could…_”

“They’ll kill your friends,” Charlie finished. “But Steve, this is happening with or without you. And you’re no use to your friends _dead._ And sooner or later, you’ll find out that _everyone_ in this place breaks eventually. There’s no _shame_ in doing what it takes to survive. Stronger men than you have broken under this place. The most you can hope for is to survive long enough for them to let you go.”

“_Do_ they let people go?” Steve mumbled.

Charlie gave him a sad smile. “Not often,” he said. “But it’s happened once before in my time here.”

Steve looked at him curiously.

“There was a group of American soldiers,” Charlie explained. “Some black op went south, and they ended up captured here. Not too long ago, they were released. The US government did some deal with the Soviets to release them.”

Steve looked at Charlie incredulously. “You’re _serious?_”

Charlie nodded with a small smile. “It’s how we got Ozerov,” he said.

Steve looked at Charlie, shocked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure your government must have captured him after _whatever_ the hell happened with you waltzing into a top-secret Russian black site. Long story short, this place was mostly plodding along a bit aimlessly, but then a few weeks ago, Ozerov showed up. I only saw him when he came into the workshop, but it was clear that he was in charge, and suddenly, everything _changed._ Things have been energized in a way I’ve never seen in my time here.”

Steve turned away from Charlie to look at the machine.

“So there’s a chance that someone knows I’m _here?_” Steve asked.

“There’s a _chance,_ yes,” Charlie said. “I’m pretty sure your government knew about the black op going sideways, though. I’m not sure whether that trade was _your_ government’s idea or the Soviets’, but one way or another, there was _an _exchange of prisoners.”

The small fire of hope that had ignited in Steve’s chest faded into embers at Charlie’s words. He tried to stave off the crushing weight of the reality. Everyone at home thought he was dead_._ The chances of the Russians deciding to tell the United States government that he, some teenager who knew far more than he should through a series of coincidences, was a prisoner in Russia, were next to nothing.

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he almost missed the bitterness in Charlie’s voice.

“What about you?” Steve asked. “Do people know _you’re_ here?”

Charlie gave a smile as forced as the ones Steve had become used to giving. “I guess _my_ government doesn’t have any high-ranking officials to trade,” he said softly.

Steve didn’t press the matter.

Charlie eventually filled the silence with advice and instructions. A glance behind them at the Russian soldier in charge told them both that Steve needed to start doing something that looked more productive than breaking down on Charlie’s shoulder, so Charlie started talking Steve through what they were doing on the machine. He taught Steve how to use a soldering iron – which Steve was pleased to find was _not_, in fact, rocket science, even if most of the rest of what they were doing _was._ Steve still had no idea _what_ exactly they were building, but was _fairly_ certain it was a part of another Key.

Charlie mostly told Steve what to do, treating Steve more as an assistant. Steve didn’t have a problem with this, content to hold wires in place while Charlie found the appropriate tools to do whatever the blueprints were telling him to do. Every now and again, Charlie would explain what a particular word was in Russian, giving Steve the opportunity to look over the words and try and read them using the strip of paper. He would then give Steve a chance to guess what it meant, which would invariably go wrong, before telling him what it _actually _meant. Steve was fairly certain that most of it was going in one ear and out the other, which was what had always happened with Steve when he’d been learning languages at school. But he was extremely proud of himself when he’d worked out that the word ‘_mashina_’ meant ‘_machine_’. At least, he _had_ been until Charlie told him that it could also mean ‘_car_’.

Steve had just started to feel like he had some semblance of a grip on where he was when a bell went off, and Steve couldn’t help but be reminded of the end of the school day. Clearly, the bell meant something similar in this prison, as people started putting down their tools and lining up against the wall.

“Come on,” Charlie whispered, ushering him along with the others. “Stand against the wall and do what I do.”

Steve followed him, watching as the Russian soldiers started walking around the room, inspecting the machines. Two soldiers started walking along the line of prisoners. One by one, the prisoners would take a step forwards and stretch out their arms sideways, while the soldiers patted them down.

“They’re searching for tools,” Charlie breathed. “Making sure none of us try to steal anything. Someone was caught trying to smuggle a spanner out not long after I arrived here, it… wasn’t pretty.”

“What happened?” Steve breathed back.

Charlie simply gave him a look that told Steve all he needed to know.

Charlie was beckoned forward with a command, a hand patting down his sleeves and across his chest and back. The hands then patted down around his stomach before moving down his legs. Steve watched, the scrap of paper with his alphabet feeling more and more incriminating. Steve tucked it into the waistband of his pants behind his back, hoping that it would be enough.

Charlie was sent back with no problems before Steve was beckoned forwards.

Steve did his best to copy Charlie’s pose, feeling hands against his arms. They felt along his chest, running down his stomach and behind his back in exactly the same way that they’d done to Charlie. Hands started to run down his leg, pressing uncomfortably close to his groin, before doing a final run up around his waist –

Steve felt his heartbeat rise as the soldier’s fingers felt the small scrap of paper. He found himself being spun around and the paper was pulled out, the soldier reading it.

“_Portnov!_” the soldier barked, and the Russian in charge came walking over.

The soldier handed the man called Portnov the paper, and Portnov inspected it.

“_Gde ty eto vzyal?_” Portnov said to Steve.

Steve didn’t know what was being said to him, looking at the soldier blankly.

“_Gde ty eto vzyal?_” Portnov repeated, clearly irate.

Fortunately, Charlie jumped in at that moment.

“_Ya otdal yego yemu_,” Charlie said. “_On pytayetsya vyuchit' russkiy yazyk._”

Steve looked over at Charlie, who was looking at Portnov, fear evident in his eyes. Portnov looked from the paper to Steve, and then over to Charlie. His scowl deepened, before he raised his hand, twirled it in a circling motion and pointed at the wall. Steve didn’t need Charlie’s muttering in order to decipher the meaning.

“Turn around and face the wall,” Charlie breathed. “Put your hands against the wall above your head.”

Steve copied Charlie’s pose, his heart thumping in his chest.

“It’s a scare tactic,” Charlie breathed. “They do it to intimidate us.”

Steve would have been more reassured if Charlie had said it with any level of conviction that might have indicated that he believed it himself.

There was the tell-tale clicking sound of a gun being cocked.

“Don’t turn around,” Charlie breathed as Steve tilted his head towards his arm, the fear in his voice palpable.

Steve’s heart felt like it was trying to break out of his newly healed chest.

“Steve,” Charlie breathed. “It’ll be okay-”

_BANG!_

Steve’s eyes slammed shut as the gunshot echoed around the room. The impact didn’t come, however. He heard something heavy slide down next to him. He didn’t dare to open his eyes.

He almost jumped out of his skin when a hand grabbed his shoulder, turning him round. Steve’s eyes flew open, and he wished they hadn’t. The memory of the sight that met him would be burnt in his retinas for as long as he lived.

Charlie lay on the floor, blood pooling around him. He hadn’t fallen flat, falling awkwardly against the wall. His face was tilted at an unnatural angle towards Steve. His eyes were open, glassy. The bullet had gone into the back of his head and had exited through his forehead, a messy hole the size of a golf ball in its wake. Blood ran down his face, tracing tracks over his cheeks like bright red tears.

Steve didn’t know how long he stared at the only friendly face he’d found in this prison, dead for trying to help him. Steve’s eyes were wide, his breathing ragged through his mouth, which was open in shock. He didn’t even notice that he was shaking, staring down at the man below him, oblivious to everyone else around him. Tears were running down his own cheeks, pale imitations of the blood that dripped over Charlie’s face.

“_Vash alfavit_,” Portnov said dismissively, pressing the scrap of paper against Steve’s chest.

-:-

Steve learnt the hard way what ‘_dush_’ meant.

He hadn’t been given much of a chance to recover after Charlie as he’d been escorted out of the workshop. The soldiers had led them away with no word about what had happened. None of the other prisoners would meet Steve’s eye as they walked.

He’d found himself being pushed into a cell, landing awkwardly on the floor as he’d lost his balance. He hadn’t put out a hand to break his fall, too busy cradling the paper against his chest. The small piece of paper that Charlie had hoped would save Steve’s life. The small piece of paper that had cost Charlie his own.

He hadn’t slept a wink. The hours that had passed had been spent in a complete haze, with Steve staring at the scrap of paper in his hands. He read it, he re-read it, and he tried to test himself on it. Memories of being sat on Nancy Wheeler’s bed a _lifetime_ ago, using her little flashcards to test her on chemistry to help her study had shot through his mind, interwoven with the sound of Charlie’s words to him.

_“Learn it. Memorise it. Keep it safe. Hide it somewhere. If you can’t read those instructions, you’re as good as dead.”_

It was like a mantra through Steve’s brain, a repeated soundtrack over the sight of Charlie’s dead body lying on the floor.

He’d learnt that a lowercase Y was an ‘uh’ sound. The square that looked like a chair was a ‘D’ sound. The backwards N was an ‘ee’ sound. The lowercase P was their equivalent of the letter R.

After what felt like hours spent looking at the scrap of paper, a key scraped in the lock of his cell. Steve managed to shove the tiny scrap of paper, the one lifeline he had into a corner that he prayed the Russians wouldn’t notice as someone came in with a bowl of – _grey._

It _might_, in its youth several lifetimes ago, have been a bowl of porridge. Steve was fairly certain that he was supposed to eat it – the spoon to one side was a giveaway – and given that it was all Steve had been offered to eat since waking up in that hospital bed, his stomach gave a traitorous growl.

It tasted as bland as it looked, the texture feeling closer to wet cement than actual food, but he found himself swallowing it, his stomach grabbing what little it could get. Steve surprised himself by eating all of it. The guard hovered over him the entire time, watching him with beady eyes.

When the bowl was empty, the guard pointed him out of the cell. Steve followed warily, his heart pounding in his chest.

He was led with six other prisoners from the cells around him into an empty concrete room.

“_Dush,_” one of the soldiers said.

Despite now having a vague idea of how to _write_ the word in a way that the Russians would understand, he still didn’t have any idea what it meant, and was extremely surprised by the other prisoners frantically taking off their clothes. Following their example, he tentatively started taking off his top –

A blast of cold water hit them all from a hose. The water was icy, spraying into his hair and across his clothes. Steve felt his entire body tense from the shock of the temperature change. He hadn’t been _warm_ before, but this was another level. The water soaked through his clothes and into his skin, leaving him shivering.

The water stopped, and the other prisoners collected their clothes and started putting them back on. Steve’s, however, were soaked through. He evidently hadn’t got them off fast enough.

In his mind, he could hear a small voice in his ear, a voice that sounded an awful lot like his French teacher from eighth grade, saying the word ‘_douche_’ while he and Tommy had sat at the back of the class, laughing.

_Dush. Douche. Shower._

He got it now.

Steve could almost immediately tell why everyone was so quick to get undressed in the shower. The prison was cold at the best of times, and while the clothes weren’t exactly the best at keeping him _warm_, he was shivering as the waterlogged material clung to his skin, pressing icy cold water against every part of his body. There was no relief to be found from the cold anywhere, not even in the workshop.

He found himself working on the same machine he’d been working on the day before. He stared down at the blueprints, the strange illegible text dancing before him. The little of the alphabet he’d memorised was not translating across now he was faced with words – words his life depended on him somehow being able to read.

_He couldn’t do this._

He looked up, his eyes travelling around the workshop. He saw a few prisoners watching him, turning away as his eyes raked over them. Nobody was going to help him – not after what had happened to the last person who had tried.

His eyes landed on the wall they’d lined up against yesterday. From where he was, he could still _see_ the bloodstain that spattered across the wall. Someone had evidently moved Charlie’s body, but the blood was still there. Evidently, the Russians cared about as much about a hygienic workplace for their prisoners as they cared about appropriate safety measures.

He didn’t want to die like Charlie.

_He had to do this._

He picked up the short, blunt pencil that Charlie had used, and started to write down what he could remember of the alphabet on the edge of the paper.

-:-

Steve hadn’t managed to learn _every_ letter of the alphabet in one night. The blueprints of the machine, however, for the most part, had pictorial instructions alongside them, which had, quite literally, been a lifesaver. It had at least allowed Steve to _pretend_ that he knew what he was doing, looking busy every time a Russian soldier glanced over at him. That wouldn’t fool them for _long,_ but hopefully whatever protection the status of ‘_Very Important Prisoner_’ gave him would hold until he could understand more than a few words.

Not that the day had been a _complete _loss. Charlie had been right in that a few words of Russian sounded remarkably similar to English. He’d been pleasantly surprised to discover that the word ‘_bolt_’ existed in Russian. He was also _fairly_ certain that he’d worked out a few words from the diagrams as well – he was _fairly _certain that the word ‘_provod_’ meant wire, for example.

Once he’d been taken back to his cell, he took off his clothes. Evidently a day in a freezing cold workshop was not suitable to dry them, and so Steve had pulled them off and rubbed his hands against his arms, trying to stimulate _some_ response to heat his skin. He’d curled up into himself, before grabbing the scrap of paper and started trying to fill the gaps in his knowledge.

He jerked awake at the sound of the key in the lock. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but the crick in his neck told him he’d fallen asleep hunched against the wall. He just about managed to grab his clothes, which still felt cold and slightly damp to the touch, and pulled them on as fast as he could.

His bowl of grey was identical to the previous day. It seemed to be the only meal he was granted in the day, though, so his stomach overruled his tongue as he forced it down. Once again, as soon as he was finished, he was led into the bare concrete room.

“_Dush,_” the soldier barked.

Steve succeeded that day where he’d failed the previous day, managing to pull his clothes off before the blast of cold water hit his back. He felt _slightly_ less stupid than he’d done the previous day, pulling the clothes back on afterwards, trying his hardest not to visibly shiver.

He was, once again, led to the workshop where he sat down in front of the blueprints. He glanced around the room, before picking up the pencil and scribbling down the new characters he’d managed to learn in the night.

-:-

It was almost a whole week after Paul Harrington had formally taken office as Hawkins Mayor before Hopper received a summons to his office. Hopper was almost _impressed_ by his restraint.

Every single aspect of the meeting felt like a power play. It was so very, _very_ textbook it practically hurt. To start with, Harrington had proven himself perfectly capable of coming down to the station, but instead chose to request Hopper’s presence at the Town Hall, insisting on eating far more time out of Hopper’s day than his own. And calling it a ‘request’ was a very loose way of putting it.

Harrington was also late in starting. He’d asked for an eleven o’clock meeting, and Hopper was sat outside for nearly half an hour with no word from Harrington’s new secretary. Candice’s job evidently hadn’t survived the change in administration, having been replaced by a woman that Hopper had no doubt had been chosen by Harrington’s wife. Severe, ice cold, at least ten years older than Harrington, she reminded Hopper of a strict librarian. Even more so when she’d glared at him after he started humming under his breath to pass the time.

Hopper was getting increasingly impatient, certain that if _he’d_ been even a second late, Harrington would have given him Hell to pay.

Finally, at 11:42 by the clock on the wall, Harrington’s new secretary came and found him.

“Mayor Harrington is ready for you now,” she said with a clipped smile.

Hopper almost – _almost_ – rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what the delay was, and wasn’t expecting an apology. He followed the secretary into the office that he’d last visited when it had been occupied by a man with very different motives.

“Ah, Chief Hopper, come in,” Harrington said in a tone that was close to genial. Clearly, he was making an effort today. “Have a seat.”

Harrington gestured at one of the chairs in front of him and took in the office. A shiny plaque with a single word, _‘Mayor’_, was sat on the front of the desk, but otherwise the room was very sparse. There was a plant in the corner, and a photo frame on the windowsill, but otherwise the office was almost empty. With little else to look at, Hopper eyed the photo, taking it in. It was a relatively recent photo of Harrington and his wife with Steve. It looked painfully posed, glassy smiles looking as real as the one currently gracing Harrington’s lips as he shuffled some papers into a drawer. Hopper wondered if he’d known the kid when that photo had been taken.

“Thank you for waiting,” Harrington said. “Would you like anything to-”

“Let’s cut the crap, Paul,” Hopper said dismissively. “Mind if I call you ‘Paul’? I know what’s going on here. Your little power trip, calling me down here for eleven to see me at quarter to twelve, I know what’s going on. And I’m not biting. So let’s cut through all the bullshit, skip the part where we pretend we like each other, and get onto whatever was so urgent you had me here waiting for three quarters of an hour.”

The smile dropped from Harrington’s face to be replaced by an albeit far more believable cold look.

“Alright, _Jim,_” Harrington said coldly. “If that’s how you’d like to do it, the _reason_ you were waiting three quarters of an hour is because over two decades of running a law firm has taught me that punctuality is _everything_. Arrive early, because you _certainly_ won’t be getting anything if you’re late. My eleven fifteen appointment understood that far better than _you_ seemed to, so when he arrived before _you_ did, I elected to reshuffle my schedule to allow myself to keep on top of everything. That is, after all, my prerogative as Mayor of this town and your new _boss_. So the lesson here, _Jim_, is that when I ask you to arrive for an eleven o’clock meeting, I do not expect you to waltz into Town Hall at _ten fifty-nine_, expecting to get through everything as though the world waits for you and nobody _but_ you. Arrive in plenty of time. And in _my_ world, that means be early. _Sufficiently_ early. It is what I expected in the legal world, and it’s what I expect of _you._ And for the record, it is _‘Mayor Harrington’ _to you.”

Hopper raised his eyebrows at that. Paul Harrington was no Larry Kline, meeting Hopper’s counter to the power play and smacking it down, making it _painfully_ clear that he would not be defied. Hopper remembered that, unlike Kline, Harrington had come from a career where likeability was hardly the most important asset and was clearly applying that logic to his new role. Hopper was _almost_ impressed, until he found himself agreeing with words he’d heard so many times from Harrington’s own son.

Paul Harrington really _was_ a grade A asshole.

“Now,” Harrington continued, no trace of warmth, real or otherwise. “I want an overview of all open cases your department has. Not necessarily all the gory details, but an overview.”

Hopper had been expecting that much. “I’ll have a list of active cases for you tomorrow,” he said softly.

“I said _open _cases, not necessarily _active,_” Harrington corrected. “_All_ open cases. Active, inactive, cold cases, major or minor, if it’s come through your department and hasn’t been solved, I want to know about it.”

“_Mayor Harrington,_” Hopper said, trying to inject as much sarcasm into the title as he could. “You want an overview of _every single_ unsolved case my department has ever had?”

“Did I stutter?” Harrington asked.

Hopper bit his tongue to stop the retort that had been dancing in his mouth. He wasn’t quite sure what it would have been, exactly, Hopper could feel that there would have been more than a few words that could have cost him his job.

“How far back would you like me to go?” Hopper ground out.

Harrington leant back in his chair, pressing his fingers together. “Let’s see,” he muttered. “At _least_ all the way through Kline’s administration, maybe even further… Let’s say go back to from the start of ’75 to start off with. We’ll see where we are from there.”

Hopper felt his temper rising as Harrington gave him an infuriating grin. He wanted _every single cold case_ for the last ten years. In most places, that wouldn’t have been a _completely_ unreasonable request, but Hawkins residents had a tendency to report each other for the smallest of things. By normal everyday Hawkins standards, Merrill reporting his pumpkins as being poisoned the year before had been positively reasonable. Lawn ornaments getting lost would invariably be the result of jealous neighbours, or teenage gangsters, never mind that Billy Hargrove had been the closest thing to a ‘gangster’ Hawkins had ever seen. It was extremely rare that these petty ‘crimes’ would be solved, because it was extremely rare for a crime to have actually taken place, but because the lawn ornament or whatever remained lost, the case would stay open, unsolved. Harrington _must_ have known this, even spending twenty-five days a month out of Hawkins, he’d been accused of his fair share of hedge infringements.

Going through and making Hopper summarise _ten years’ worth_ of these cases was clearly his idea of a bad joke. Or a cruel and unusual punishment.

“So you’ll have that ready for me tomorrow, correct?” Harrington said.

“Tomorrow, maybe the day after,” Hopper growled out.

“Make it tomorrow.”

“I’ll do my best,” Hopper muttered, not looking at Harrington as he got up to leave.

“One more thing,” Harrington said just as Hopper’s hand froze on the door. “I noticed your department recently hired Joyce Byers to replace that assistant that retired.”

Yeah, no. There was no way in Hell frozen over that Hopper was going to take that shit from _Paul fucking Harrington_.

“Yeah,” Hopper said in a tone that he _hoped_ indicated that he would not have this fight. “She’s smart. I think she’ll be a real asset to Hawkins PD.”

Harrington gave him an appraising look. “Far be it from me to tell you who you can and can’t sleep with, _Chief, _but at least _try_ to make your nepotism less blatantly obvious. And don’t bother lying about it.”

Hopper glared at him coldly. “Rest assured, _Mayor, _it won’t be a problem.”

“Good,” Harrington said, pulling out some papers from the drawer and looking down at them in a gesture that Hopper clearly understood as a dismissal. He turned back to the door before his hand froze on the door handle, remembering something.

“Is there anything _else?_” Harrington asked, not looking up.

“I – uh… I heard Kline wanted to speak to you,” Hopper said. “Did you go and see him?”

Harrington still didn’t look up, but Hopper noticed how his eyes stopped scanning across the page.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” he said curtly.

“What did he say?”

Harrington’s eyes started moving across the page again. “Nothing I’m going to tell you.”

“It could be important-”

“_Nothing you need to know,_ Chief Hopper,” Harrington said firmly, looking up at him. “Now, if that’s all, I think we’re done here, don’t you agree?”

Hopper let out a long breath, before turning the door handle. “Yeah,” he breathed. “We’re done.”

-:-

Steve had _just_ managed to get into a routine when it was disrupted.

It had been several days of the same. He’d be woken by a key scraping in a lock, he’d eat his edible cement, he’d get taken to a room and blasted with an icy hose, and then he’d go to the workshop, where he’d try and decipher as much of the blueprints as he could. He had an entire alphabet scribbled on the edge of the blueprints now, and he was getting to the point where he was only double-checking every other letter. He’d then try his hardest to mimic the pictographs and follow what little instruction he could read until the bell rang and he was taken back to his cell, where he’d find that scrap of paper and test himself on the alphabet until he fell asleep. The only variation was how _well_ he slept.

His nights were filled with dreams of shadows, vines, Demodogs, corpses, blood choking him, and Billy. _Always Billy._

His day started like any other. Key. Bowl. Shower. Cold. Workshop. Blueprints.

And that was when they came.

Two soldiers marched into the workshop. This would hardly have been cause for significant concern had it not been for the fact that they walked with far greater purpose than most soldiers that sidled in and out of the workshop usually had. Everyone paused for a moment as the soldiers approached Portnov, inaudible words of Russian being hissed between the three men.

Steve’s stomach dropped like a stone when Portnov pointed straight over at Steve.

Even a few days ago, Steve might have considered running, but memories of Charlie lying dead on the floor quashed that thought as his eyes lighted on the guns around both of their shoulders. He wouldn’t make it very far, he’d be gunned down before leaving the workshop. Steve felt completely powerless as they grabbed his arms, hauling him up and dragging him out of the workshop.

“What’s – what’s going on?” Steve asked the soldiers, hoping against hope that one of them spoke English.

He was disappointed.

Determined not to be _dragged_ out of the workshop, he forced his legs into cooperating, stumbling to keep up with the soldiers’ efficient pace. He was led down a gangway when suddenly they stopped. One of them tried to find something in one of his pockets, something that looked like a large piece of black cloth.

“W-W-Wait,” Steve stammered as it was pulled out and Steve saw exactly what it was. “Wait, please, I don’t know anything, I don’t know, I don’t-”

The other soldier grabbed his arms and pulled them behind his back as the first soldier shook out the black cloth, before placing the hood over Steve’s head, plunging Steve’s world into darkness.

A hand on each arm held him in place as he was guided, staggering, through unseen halls. The hands were the only thing that stopped him falling as the floor suddenly gave way to stairs. Steve had no idea where he was going. He lost track somewhere around the fourth turn, not that he would have been able to recreate his route, even if he’d had the opportunity.

He felt himself being thrown to the ground, his hands barely able to catch himself as he smacked against the concrete floor. He felt the hood pulled off his face, only to find Colonel Ozerov mere inches from him.

It took his eyes a second or two to adjust to the light, staring at Ozerov as he crouched down in front of him.

“Well, Butterscotch, it would seem you’ve been holding out on us,” Ozerov said. “For, you see, this young man tells me he knows you.”

Steve’s heart started pounding in his chest at Ozerov’s words. His worst fears were confirmed in seconds as Ozerov stood back, allowing Steve a full view of the room. From the shadows behind Ozerov, a silhouette of a man emerged, a halo of messy curls around his head, longer than Steve had ever seen them. The man walked across the room and stood in front of Steve, looking down at where he’d awkwardly fallen.

“Hello, Steve,” Billy Hargrove said. “How nice to see you.”

Steve’s heart pounded in his chest as he made to scramble to his feet. His efforts were cut short by a sharp backhand to his face, leaving Steve barely catching himself as he fell to the side.

Steve looked up at Billy as he lowered his arm. Billy’s eyes were burning with a dark fire, his pupils dilated, and Steve could see more clearly here that there was a blackness to him, evident in his eyes, in his actions, in his very soul.

This was not Billy Hargrove. This was the Mind Flayer, through and through.

A soft tutting came from behind Billy. Steve’s eyes flashed back to Ozerov.

“Your friend has been _far_ more cooperative than you have been, Butterscotch,” the Colonel said softly. “And you are proving yourself to be more trouble than you may be worth. I am wondering if you may have outlived your usefulness…”

“No,” Billy breathed, cupping Steve’s chin and tilting his face up towards his own. “He is still useful. We still need him alive. We still need him to _talk._ After all,” Billy looked over at Ozerov, a feral smile in place, a poor imitation of its host’s trademark, “he knows where to find the girl.”

Steve’s heart was threatening to break his ribs all over again.

“Billy, please, no-” Steve gasped. If Billy was still in there, _anywhere,_ Steve had to get through to him.

“What girl?” Ozerov asked over Steve’s protests.

“Billy, _please _don’t do this,” Steve begged, trying to yank his chin free from Billy’s grip.

Billy looked coldly down at Steve, staring straight into his eyes as that feral grin widened.

“The girl who can open the Gate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you've got three guesses as to what's coming next chapter...


	24. Part 3 Chapter 3: Dignity Be Damned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Some seriously intense descriptions of torture here. Not sure if anyone reading this is likely to have been waterboarded in their life, but if you have... maybe skip this chapter???  
Also some period-typical homophobia feat. a slur. Not the worst thing I've ever written, but the warning is there.

Steve’s throat closed as he was practically dragged into the cold, sterile room. His heart was pounding in his chest at the sight in front of him. He was struggling against the two soldiers holding his arms, his mouth opening and closing, trying to force pleas from his lips when his voice simply refused to cooperate.

The room was empty, with a table on one wall, a couple of chairs either side of the door, and a bench in the centre, reminiscent of the room Steve had been held in when he and Robin had been captured beneath Starcourt. There was a bench in the centre of the room, angled ever so slightly downwards, leather restraints fixed into the wood.

The soldiers practically threw Steve against the bench. Steve struggled against their hands, pushing at them, fighting tooth and nail to wrest himself – any _part_ of himself – free.

Ozerov followed them inside, with Billy in his wake. Steve rounded on Billy, finally yanking one of his arms free.

“So, what? You’re working with _them_ now?” Steve gasped at Billy, his breathing coming ragged.

Billy looked back at him, the darkness in his eyes overshadowing any other emotion. He looked more inhuman than Steve had ever seen him.

“Working with them to get to _her?_” Steve continued, breathing hard as the soldiers redoubled their hold on him, pushing him down onto the bench. “I won’t _let_ you, I _won’t!_”

The soldiers finally succeeded in pinning Steve down onto the bench, slamming his head down against the wood as they fastened the restraints around his wrist. Steve was left seeing stars, vision swimming, his body tilting at an unnatural angle.

Steve’s vision eased up into its usual clarity, and Steve’s eyes locked onto Ozerov, who was watching Steve’s struggles with amusement.

“Please,” Steve gasped. “Please, _listen _to me. That – that _thing_ there – it’s not _human…_ I know it looks like a man, but it’s _not._ It’s _using _you – as soon as you’re not useful to it anymore, it’ll _kill_ you. Please, you can’t trust him – you can’t trust _it-_”

“Always so full of _advice,_ aren’t you, Butterscotch?” Ozerov said with a sinister smile.

“_For God’s sake, I’m trying to help you!_”

“Oh, you can be _so_ helpful,” Ozerov’s grin became, if anything, more sinister. “All you need to do is tell us about this girl.”

Steve turned his head as best he could to look at the two soldiers who were doing something slightly out of his field of vision. He heard a dim splashing of water, but there were restraints on his wrists, upper arms, and across his chest, as well as over his legs, restricting most of Steve’s movement. They moved on his periphery; Steve only able to catch glimpses of the top of their heads as they worked with their backs to him.

A second later, they turned back towards him, holding a damp cloth.

“This is your last chance to tell us freely,” Ozerov said coldly. “Believe me when I say that it will be to your benefit if you do so, and your detriment if you do not.”

Steve held Ozerov’s glare, trying desperately to remember what he’d told Billy when the Mind Flayer had first appeared at one of the Gates. He had to assume that everything he’d told Billy was compromised, but _what had he told him about Eleven?_

“Very well,” Ozerov said, evidently impatient. “You have chosen the hard way.”

“Wait,” Steve gasped. “W-w-wait, _please-_”

Ozerov gave a nod to the soldiers, who placed the wet cloth over Steve’s face, pressing it against his nose and mouth. Steve twisted and turned his head as much as he could, trying to shake it off his eyes, but it obscured his vision completely.

“Let us start with a name, yes?” Ozerov said.

“Please,” Steve tried to gasp, not sure how much was likely to be audible. “I’m begging you, _please-_”

“What is the girl’s name?” Ozerov asked.

“I don’t – I don’t know, _PLEASE-_”

Steve felt cold water hit his face, pouring down through the cloth. No matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t prevent it from going into his mouth, the angle his head was tilting sending water into his mouth and nose. He choked, trying desperately to cough up the water – it was blocking his airway – he couldn’t breathe – _HE COULDN’T BREATHE –_

As suddenly as it had started, the water flow stopped. The cloth was pulled away and Steve was coughing, spluttering, trying to expel as much water from his nose and mouth. The restraints around his chest were suddenly undone and Steve sat bolt upright, coughing desperately, retching, sending water pouring from his mouth and down his chest. He gasped, feeling his chest expand and air – _blissful air_ filled his lungs.

“The name,” Ozerov said coldly.

Steve barely heard him, tears pouring down his cheeks. _He didn’t want – he didn’t know – he couldn’t give up – he couldn’t face that again –_

He didn’t see Ozerov nod at the soldiers. Hands suddenly grabbed his shoulders and forced him back down. The restraint was back across his chest. His world went dark. Steve barely opened his mouth to let out some noise of protest behind the cloth before –

Water poured into his open mouth – it was filling up his mouth and nasal cavity – he couldn’t see – he couldn’t breathe – he was drowning – _drowning – no air – NO AIR –_

The water stopped and the cloth was pulled away, the restraint around his chest lifted again. Steve spluttered, choking on the water in his mouth. He clenched his eyes closed, trying to hold back the tears as broken sobs shook his trembling body. He couldn’t do it – _he couldn’t do it…_

“Please…” Steve whispered, barely capable of anything more. “Please… I can’t…”

“The name,” Ozerov said. “Now.”

“Please…” Steve gasped. “Please… no… stop…”

The hands were back on his shoulders – the restraint was back around his chest – the cloth was back over his face –

“_Eleven!_”

It took Steve a moment to realise that the word had actually left his mouth in a blind panic. He heard rather than saw the room go still, the cloth still over his face.

“Eleven?” Ozerov repeated. “What is _eleven?_”

Steve was still breathing hard, his mouth moving faster than his mind. “Her name…” he barely heard himself gasp. “Eleven… _that’s _her name…”

There was a moment of complete silence in the room. Steve couldn’t see anything, his heart pounding in his chest –

Water splashed over his face again – his throat was full of it – he was choking – nothing could get it out – he was dying – he couldn’t _breathe_ –

The water stopped and the cloth and restraints over his chest were removed and Steve was hauled upright. His body convulsed and water splashed from his mouth over his chest. Tears were pouring down his face, tracks simply marking their way down his damp face. His body convulsed again, bringing up more water and bile, but his mouth wasn’t rid of it all yet –

The third convulsion brought up what meagre contents his stomach retained, a mixture of bile, puke and water dripping down his chin and onto his chest. Finally satisfied, his body settled into a coughing fit, ensuring that there was absolutely nothing left in his airway before finally letting him breathe in. Barely restrained sobs were only broken up by coughs, gasps so desperate to fill up his lungs that they couldn’t take in more than a superficial amount of air in his body’s desperate urge to _breathe…_

“Do not try to _lie_ to me, Butterscotch,” Ozerov said coldly.

“I’m _not-_” Steve coughed violently as he tried to take another breath. “I’m not _lying_…”

His voice was hoarse, his protests coming out higher than normal, desperate pleas for trust rather than protests for his dignity.

“Her name is Eleven,” Steve spluttered. He didn’t know – didn’t _care_ – what he was saying. He just wanted to make it _stop._ “We call her El. I don’t know what else you want, just _please…_”

He could barely say another word as uncontrolled sobs overtook him. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t go through that again, he didn’t want to feel water in his mouth ever again…

He finally managed to open his eyes, finding Billy’s icy blue ones, corrupted by the Mind Flayer’s black as they were.

“_Tell them,_ Billy,” he begged, uncaring about what he’d been reduced to. “_Please,_ tell them it’s the truth…”

Ozerov and the soldiers looked at Billy, whose eyes were fixed on the bloodshot, tear-filled brown eyes that were _begging_ him to corroborate his story. Eventually, he turned to Ozerov with a nod.

Steve’s heart surged with relief, fresh tears overtaking old ones as a smile spread across his face, hysterical laughter merging with sobs.

“Why do they call her that?”

Steve almost didn’t hear the question from Ozerov. He looked at him for a moment, a heartbeat, slightly confused, before a nod from the Russian had hands on Steve’s shoulders once more, pushing him back down towards the bench.

“_Wait_ – wait – wait-” Steve stammered, his heart racing. “I don’t – she came from a lab…”

“A _lab?_” Ozerov echoed incredulously.

“Yeah…” Steve gasped. “That’s why she’s called Eleven. They gave her a number, not a name…”

Ozerov pondered this new information, looking between Steve and Billy. Billy was looking straight at Steve, though, his head tilted as a curious look crossed his face.

“Eleven…” Billy said quietly. “So are there others?”

Steve’s eyebrows pinched together slightly. “…What?” he gasped.

“You said she was given a _number,_ not a name. The number ‘Eleven’ indicates that she wasn’t the _only_ one.”

Steve looked at him, his expression slowly crumbling. “I don’t… I don’t _know…_”

Billy looked over at Ozerov, the corner of whose lips turned up the tiniest fraction before he nodded at the soldiers.

“No – no – _please-_”

Hands on Steve’s shoulders once again forced him down onto the bench.

“Please, God, I don’t _know-_”

The cloth was placed over his face and the restraint was fastened across his chest.

“Please – _wait – PLEASE-_”

The steady stream of water poured over Steve’s face – he couldn’t do this – he couldn’t – it was like the blood in his throat all over again – he would do anything – if only he could just _breathe _–

The cloth was removed from his face and he was allowed to sit up again. Once he’d managed to spit, cough or vomit the water from his mouth, he gasped for air, barely listening to Ozerov. _If he told them what he wanted to hear, maybe it could stop…_

“Are there others?” Ozerov asked.

Steve numbly found himself nodding his head. He didn’t _know_ if it was the truth, he didn’t _care…_ he just wanted it to stop…

“How many?”

Steve was a shaking wreck. He didn’t _know_, he just needed to give them something – _anything _– just to get them to stop.

“I don’t…” he gasped. “I don’t know – _ten?_”

Billy’s eyebrows shot up as he looked somewhat sceptically at Ozerov.

“And where are they _now?_”

Steve’s eyes were begging Billy for mercy, for some _end_ to this.

“I don’t know,” he sobbed. “I don’t even know if they _exist…_”

Billy looked at Ozerov again, who once again nodded at the soldiers. Steve didn’t have any fight left in him as he was pulled down once again to the bench, his heart pounding.

“No… please…” he gasped.

The cloth was pressed over his face, the restraint was fastened across his chest, and without any more warning, water was in his mouth again.

Steve was choking – he was drowning – the water wasn’t water anymore – he was in the Upside Down again – choking on his own blood – he was drowning – he was going to _die _–

The water stopped with blessed relief and Steve was given another chance to sit up. The water was water again as he coughed it out of his mouth and throat.

Ozerov leant forwards, his nose inches from Steve.

“The others, are they in America?” he asked.

_Tell them what they want to hear._

Steve nodded.

“Are they in Hawkins?”

Another nod.

“Are they in New York?”

Steve’s head involuntarily nodded. Ozerov cupped Steve’s chin as he held his head steady, his fingers too firm on Steve’s skin.

“Are they in Moscow?”

Steve just nodded, his eyes closed, barely even hearing the questions.

“_Gavno!_” Ozerov snapped to nobody in particular, pushing Steve’s head to one side as he straightened up. “_Otpusti yego. Vozmi yego._”

The soldiers started to undo the rest of the restraints on Steve’s arms and legs. Steve barely had it in him to notice, staring at his lap.

“What are you _doing?_” Billy snapped.

“He’s had enough, he’s useless,” Ozerov said dismissively.

“He was telling us _everything!_”

“He was telling us _what he thought we wanted to hear_,” Ozerov pointed out. “He would admit to assassinating your President Kennedy if you asked him now.”

“I want to know about the others,” Billy growled. “I _need_ to know about the others. _That_ was our agreement. I help you if you help _me._ Now, _I_ need to know about the others.”

“_What_ others?” Ozerov asked. “He does not _know._ You heard him as well as I did.”

The soldiers chose that moment to haul Steve off the bench. Steve’s legs were shaking so much that they folded under him the second they hit the ground. He fell to the floor like a rag doll, his body refusing to cooperate. Billy gave a small huff in Ozerov’s general direction before crouching down beside Steve, giving the soldiers a glare that stopped them in their tracks.

“Steve,” Billy breathed, gently touching Steve’s arm. Steve flinched at the contact, his whole body violently jerking away.

“Steve,” Billy repeated, shuffling closer to him. “It’s just you and me now. You and me, just like before. You remember that, Steve?”

_Tell him what he wanted to hear._

Steve gave a nod.

“Can you tell me about the others?” Billy said softly, his voice only audible to Steve.

Steve wanted to tell him something he wanted to hear. He wanted to, more than anything. He didn’t want to risk being put back on that bench.

“Can you tell me their names?”

Steve paused for a second. He thought about it.

_What would their names be?_

He finally found the answer. He nodded, and Billy’s smile could have lit up a room.

“That’s great, Steve,” Billy breathed encouragingly. “What are their names?”

Steve was still nodding, and he took a deep breath. _Such a simple action that he’d taken for granted._

“One…” Steve said. “Two… Three… Four… Five…”

Billy’s face fell and he straightened up, taking a step away from Steve. Steve could feel his frustration coming off him in waves. He looked desperately up at Billy. _He’d given him what he’d wanted…_

“Just…” Billy said, turning to the soldiers with a small wave of the hand. “Just… take him.”

The soldiers bent down and grabbed Steve’s arms, dragging him out of the room. They didn’t bother taking him back to the workshop. Steve looked up at the sound of a key scraping in a lock, and he found himself being dragged into his cell. There was no fight left in him, there was _nothing_ left in him.

The door banged shut behind him, the key scraped in the lock, and Steve curled in on himself, holding his legs to his chest. His mouth kept forming the same words over and over again, his brain barely able to comprehend anything else.

“One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight… Nine… Ten…”

-:-

The rumours had been following Max around for the week and a half she’d been at high school.

_Why did they break up? I heard Sinclair finally dumped her… I heard she was cheating on him… I heard he caught her with a girl… I heard she was too much of a dyke even for him… I had her pegged as a dyke the second she arrived, all hoodies and skateboards… who _didn’t _know she was a fucking lesbian? …Explains why Billy Hargrove hated her so much… _

That last one stung every time she heard it. And she’d heard it all. Every word, every whisper in the cafeteria, every slightly-too-loud conversation about her in the hall. She knew what they all thought of her, and she didn’t care.

She didn’t.

She _didn’t._

She was Mad Max Mayfield. She had been alone _long_ before Lucas and his ‘Party’ came along. She was fine with that. Fine_. _Just _fine._

She walked into Chemistry. She’d never liked it much. It had always held such _promise_ in her eyes, only to be a complete let down of theory. Granted, under Mr Clarke, there had been some slight promise of interest – Mr Clarke’s enthusiasm for all things science had made even rote-learning the tests for different gases mildly interesting – but Mrs Kaminsky had none of Mr Clarke’s aptitude for holding a classroom’s attention.

It also didn’t help that it was the lesson she found herself sat closest to Lucas, Dustin, Mike, Will and El.

El had been a saving grace. At a complete loss in their first chemistry lesson, when Kaminsky had told them all to find a lab partner, she’d approached Max with an overwhelmed expression. She’d decided to override Hopper’s insistence that she stay away from Max, quietly saying _“it’s only for Chemistry.”_ So far, nobody had mentioned it to Hopper.

That day, however, was _not_ destined to be a good day, courtesy of Stacey Albright.

Kaminsky was running late. The class was not being quiet. Max could only be glad that they were in a classroom that day as opposed to one of the science labs, because an excited group of unsupervised fourteen-year-olds and a lab full of highly breakable glassware would _not_ be a good mix. Mike, Will, Lucas and Dustin were sat together near the front of the classroom, talking about nothing in particular, when Stacey Albright leant across to them, smiling at Lucas warmly with the occasional glance sideways towards where Max and El were sat in tables behind.

“Hey, Sinclair,” Stacey said in a tone that might have been sympathetic if any of them hadn’t known Stacey better. “I heard you and Mayfield broke up over the summer.”

Max rolled her eyes, determined to tune it out. Unfortunately, amongst the freshmen, Lucas and Max’s breakup was _the_ hot topic of conversation after Starcourt, so when _Stacey Albright _brought it up, people who heard started to listen.

Lucas, to his credit, had the decency to look uncomfortable. “Uh… yeah, we did…” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a sympathetic tone of voice that fooled exactly nobody. “What happened? You guys were so _close_.”

Lucas shot an uncomfortable glance over at Max, who decided against pretending that she couldn’t hear every word of a conversation she was clearly _meant_ to hear but not participate in.

“We just…” Lucas began, looking over at Max with a slightly apologetic look in his eyes. “We just grew apart, you know? That’s all.”

Stacey gave a sigh that might have been an attempt at a genuine expression of sadness if it weren’t for the fact that she was more upset about the lack of any suitable gossip than at the demise of Lucas’ relationship.

“I heard it was because you found out she was a dyke,” a boy said. Max’s head wheeled around, looking for the culprit, but it could have been anyone in a group of moronic jocks who were all trying out for the basketball team.

“She’s not a _dyke!_” Lucas protested.

“Just a selfish bitch,” Dustin muttered under his breath, audible to the entire classroom. His comment sent waves of laughter at Max’s expense through the crowd of boys and Stacey’s friends.

“_Dustin,_ come on,” Will snapped, glaring at him.

Mike was conspicuously silent, neither joining Dustin nor calling him out. Lucas looked incredibly uncomfortable, shooting Max an apologetic glance across the room. They may not have been on speaking terms, but Lucas clearly didn’t like being used as a pawn by the rest of the class to bully her.

“You know what?” Max snapped, glaring at Dustin. “_Screw you,_ Dustin.”

Dustin opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Kaminsky. She swept into the room with a glare that sent most people back to their seats. Mike and Will turned around to face the front, while Lucas leaned across the aisle towards Dustin.

“Dude, what the hell is _wrong_ with you?” he hissed.

Dustin glared back at him, matching his volume. “What’s _wrong _with me? She lied to _all _of us, she put us all in danger, and risked _everything_ we’ve spent the last three years trying to stop, everything Steve _died_ for-”

“Well you don’t have to be such an _asshole_ about it-”

“And _you _don’t have to keep pining after her. _You_ ended it, remember?”

“I’m not _pining-_”

“Mr Sinclair, Mr Henderson, is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

Kaminsky’s voice cut through their whispered conversation. They both looked up to a single raised eyebrow and an unimpressed look. The rest of the class was looking at them, interested.

“Oh – uh…” Lucas stammered.

“Uh – I’m just not feeling well,” Dustin tried for a smile before ducking down to get his bag. “Actually, I should – I should probably go to the nurse…”

Lucas’ eyes snapped to Dustin as he stood up. He looked at him, confused, as Dustin started to walk towards the door. Will and Mike both turned in their seats to look at Lucas, Mike giving Lucas a questioning look while Lucas responded with an equally incredulous shrug, fortunately unnoticed by Kaminsky who was far more occupied with the swift exit of Dustin Henderson, the science nerd who _never _skipped classes.

At least, until now.

-:-

It took hours for Steve to start to straighten his head out.

_‘Start’_ being the operative word in that sentence. He managed to stop repeating the last answer over and over to himself, and started hearing a voice that sounded a lot like Billy telling him to breathe.

_In… two… three… hold… out… two… three…_

He started to straighten out the events of the previous – _day?_ – in his mind. Billy was here in Russia. Whether of his own free – _enslaved?_ – will or from the Russians bringing him here, Steve didn’t know. There must have been some voluntary desire on his part, because the Mind Flayer could have destroyed – _flayed_ – the Russian army quite easily. _Maybe it already had?_

Billy had told the Russians about El’s existence. What gaps were in his knowledge had been filled by Steve. _Again._ He had gone from determined defiance and a strong urge to protect his friends to a sobbing wreck, begging for mercy, telling them everything they’d wanted to know, making up answers he didn’t have purely to stop them from hurting him again. And the whole process had taken less than five minutes.

He didn’t know how he was _ever_ going to face his friends. Assuming he ever made it home.

He jumped at the sound of the key scraping in the lock, scrambling against the wall, pressing his back flush against the concrete as the door swung open. It stood to reason, it was another day, the guards had their routine. Steve didn’t take his eyes off the guard, however, as he placed the bowl on the floor.

“_Vykusi,_” the guard said, pointing at the bowl when Steve didn’t immediately move, his eyes still fixed on the soldier. Steve didn’t need a particularly strong degree of fluency in Russian to understand that it meant ‘_eat._’

Steve tentatively reached out and pulled it towards him, his eyes never leaving the Russian for more than a second at a time. He was aware that he probably looked like a skittish animal – _he certainly felt like one _– but didn’t have the energy to worry too much about what this guard thought of him. On his list of problems, his burnt pride was somewhere down the bottom, between his lack of hair products and the loss of his Scoops Ahoy uniform.

He ate more slowly than normal, his eyes flitting back to the soldier between every bite. The soldier was getting more and more impatient, the occasional huff denoting just how unhappy with Steve he was. Steve cared just enough not to take his eyes off the guard, wary of his every move.

Finally, Steve set down the bowl. The feeling of _whatever it was_ he’d just eaten seemed to suck all the moisture out of his mouth, but for once, Steve was grateful for it. He didn’t think he _ever _wanted to feel water in his mouth again. He ignored the metal cup of water that sat beside the bowl, pushing everything away from him.

The guard simply raised his eyebrows before picking up the empty bowl, before taking the cup and, with a shrug, he tipped the contents out onto the floor. Steve flinched at the splashing sound as the dry concrete seemed to absorb the water.

Steve just about suffered himself to be taken into the usual bare room. He just about heard the command. He just about got his clothes off in time –

He just about managed not to collapse when the water smacked into his back.

_The water was pouring through his hair – it was dripping down onto his face – his eyes closed – he was back on that bench – unable to see – unable to scream – unable to breathe – he was choking again – choking on water or blood – he didn’t know –_

He didn’t notice the water stop. He was taking sweet, blessed breaths that went into his lungs… The water hadn’t gone into his mouth this time… He was standing upright, his legs were shaking, but they were holding him up… There weren’t restraints around his arms and legs… He wasn’t on that bench…

He cracked his eyes open again. _That was right, he_ _was in the shower._ He was the last person still there. Everyone else had gotten dressed and was leaving. He hurriedly bent down to pick up those thin, scratchy clothes, pulling the pants over his legs.

_He could do this. One step at a time._

He pulled the shirt over his head, barely letting it settle on his shoulders before making to follow the other prisoners towards the workshop. However, when he got to the door, he felt a hand against chest, two soldiers blocking his path.

“_Nyet_,” one of them said, shaking his head in case the meaning was lost on Steve.

Steve didn’t need to bother asking why. His eyes fell closed for a second, despair settling in the pit of his stomach.

“No…” he begged. “_Please_, just – let me help – I can _help_ them – let me go _back-_”

He tried to push past the soldiers, tried to follow the rest of the people towards the workshop, but the hand on his chest was joined by an arm around his waist, a second set of hands grabbing his shoulders. Between them, the two soldiers started to pull him towards that staircase into the black abyss, the staircase where every step down into the darkness was a step towards his suffering.

The heavy metal door swung open, and Steve’s heart started racing at the sight before him. He felt himself kicking away, violently trying to yank any part of his body free from the vice-like grip in which he was being held. He didn’t take in the rest of the room, his mind far too focused on the bench in front of him.

He lashed out, his foot catching one of the soldiers’ legs. He yanked his upper arm free, but the grip around his wrist stayed tight. He swung his free elbow around, feeling it connect with – _something_, tugging his wrist out of the soldier’s hand –

Something slammed into his stomach, and as suddenly as it had come, the fight left Steve’s body. He curled in on himself, doubled over on his knees, the force of the blow knocking the air out of him. He opened his eyes – _not that he remembered closing them in the first place _– to find himself looking at Billy, that strange grin on his face.

“Looks like you’ve got some fire in you after all,” Billy said softly.

Steve remembered the last time that voice had said those words towards him – _a plate smashing over his head – crashing onto the floor – that face hovering above him as punches rained down on him – waking up in the back of a car to Mike Wheeler’s face and blood all over his favourite jacket…_

“_William…_” Ozerov’s voice said warningly.

Steve’s head snapped over to where the voice was coming from. Billy stood up and stepped away from Steve, leaving Ozerov to walk to stand in front of where Steve was kneeling.

“You will tell us the truth today, yes?” Ozerov said. “Not just what you think we want to hear.”

Steve’s arms continued to cradle his stomach as he looked up at Ozerov. His head fell against his chest as he tried to take a deep breath.

“Will you believe me if I _do?_” Steve whispered.

It might have been the smallest act of defiance. It might have been a pitiful plea. Whatever it was, the words were enough to bring Ozerov down to Steve’s level, crouching down before burying a hand in Steve’s hair and yanking his head back so Steve had no choice but to look at the Colonel.

“Do you know anything about any others?” Ozerov asked.

Steve didn’t know what his face was doing. He didn’t know _why_ he hesitated. His eyes flicked up to Billy before he looked back at Ozerov and slowly shook his head as best he could.

“No,” he breathed truthfully.

Ozerov let go of Steve’s hair with a small smile. “I thought not,” he said softly. “So let’s continue to do this the easy way, shall we, Butterscotch? You don’t need to go on the board. Just tell us the truth.”

Steve’s eyes drifted shut, hating the wave of relief at Ozerov’s words. The enormous caveat of what Ozerov would ask for was enough to make the relief feel like despair. No matter how much Steve wanted to keep what he knew secret, he knew he would end up breaking eventually, just like he’d done the previous day, just like he’d done back underneath Starcourt. That realisation twisted like barbed wire around his heart.

“So, this _Eleven,_” Ozerov said, straightening up. “She came from a laboratory, yes?”

His head fell into a small nod. He knew he’d already told them that much.

“Was it Hawkins Laboratory?”

Steve hesitated. He could tell that they knew – or at least _suspected_ the answer – but something in him stopped him confirming it immediately. The fear he’d held of being strapped to that bench seemed to waver slightly, the fact that he was _not_ strapped down grounding him in a way that he had not been the day before, lost in the blind panic as he choked on water, drowning on that bench, unable to even _move_. The tremor that had shaken his hands since the previous day wasn’t _gone_, but it wasn’t quite so prevalent. The fear was still very much there, but so were the memories. The reason _why_ he’d been prepared to put himself through that hell was back in his mind. Even the simple act of hearing the name – _Eleven_ – brought her to the forefront of his mind. It breathed life into that small ember of defiance; an ember that would undoubtedly be extinguished in a flood of water in his throat before long, but Steve realised that if his actions were going to touch her or the others in any tangible way, he would rather know that at least he had _fought._ At least he had _tried_ to resist.

A crack echoed throughout the room and Steve’s head snapped to one side of its own accord. A second later, he felt a stinging sensation in his cheek. The ember of defiance dimmed.

“Was it Hawkins Laboratory?” Ozerov repeated, lowering his arm.

Steve’s head fell against his chest again in a nod. “Yes,” he breathed through gritted teeth.

“How can she open Gates?”

The little defiance he had left clamped his mouth shut. He knew he was fighting a losing battle – he _wasn’t_ a spy trained in the art of resisting interrogation, but something – the same reservoir of willpower that had stopped him from answering about Hawkins Lab immediately – stopped him from answering.

His head cracked sideways again. He flinched at the blow, certain that this defiance would not last long.

“How can she open Gates?” Ozerov repeated.

Steve swallowed. His eyes flitted to behind Ozerov, over to where Billy was standing. Billy was watching him with a curious expression on his face. It occurred to Steve in that second that _Billy_ – or at least, the Mind Flayer – would probably know the answer. Perhaps not from _Steve_, but from the little that he’d understood of how they’d closed the Gate the previous year, the Mind Flayer had faced off with El and lost. The Mind Flayer would _know_. And Billy hadn’t said a word about it to the Russians.

“I don’t…” Steve breathed, throwing caution to the wind. “I don’t know…”

Ozerov looked at him, his expression hardening. “Very well, then. If you wish to do it that way…”

Ozerov nodded at the soldiers.

“Wait – _no-_”

Without a word to each other, the soldiers grabbed Steve’s arms again and hauled him up, dragging him towards the bench. He kicked his legs out as he was bundled face first onto the angled surface. One of the soldiers grabbed his hair and slammed it down onto the wood, sending colours flashing across his vision. He felt himself being turned over, restraints fastened around his legs and arms and across his chest.

“Please – wait – I don’t _know-_”

“I asked you to tell me the _truth, _Butterscotch,” he heard Ozerov say coldly.

“Please…” Steve’s head snapped towards Billy. “_Billy!_ Please – tell them I don’t know – _tell them I don’t know!_”

His screams were cut off by the damp rag being placed across his face again. It felt like his heart rate had tripled, the water over his face and in his eyes sending him snatching breaths in rapid gasps in terrified anticipation of what was to come.

He heard the sound of something being filled up with water – the moisture of the rag against his lips sent flashbacks of the previous day shooting through his mind – _water in his mouth – burning at the back of his throat – no air to inhale – a choke sending out all the air in his lungs –_

“How can she open Gates?” Ozerov asked one more time.

Steve could hear the water splashing around in whatever container the soldiers were holding. He couldn’t see, but he could hear it above his head – it was right above him –

There was a sloshing sound –

“_NO! Wait! She has powers!_”

A small pocket of water splashed over his face, a memory of what had come the previous day. He coughed, sending it splashing into the rag and back over his skin, but the air drew into his lungs as normal. The small ember of defiance inside Steve guttered as Steve heard in his memory the words he’d just screamed.

“_Powers?_” Ozerov repeated. “What do you mean, ‘_powers_’?”

“Like…” Steve gasped, unable to see anything. “Like – _superpowers. _Like something out of the X-men or something – I don’t know, do you have _comic books_ here in Russia?”

A more sophisticated level of pride that Steve had once upon a time possessed might have groaned at him referencing one of Dustin’s comics during an interrogation, even more so at the fact that he understood that he had referenced it _correctly,_ but any thread of pride, sophisticated or otherwise, was gone.

“What _are_ these ‘powers’?” Ozerov asked.

“I don’t-” Steve babbled. “I don’t really know, I just… She opened the Gate the first time.”

“What _else?_”

The question came from Billy this time.

“I don’t…” Steve gasped. “I don’t _know!_”

“Can she _move _things?” Billy asked. He sounded – _angry? Earnest? Excited?_ “Can she move things without touching them?”

“I-”

The water sloshed dangerously in its container, the sound cutting off any ideas Steve had of lying.

“Yes,” he said, his voice cracking as tears started to run down his face.

“What _else?_” Billy repeated, and Steve knew the word for Billy’s voice.

_Unhinged._

“I don’t _know!_” Steve all but screamed. “I don’t _know, _I don’t _understand_…”

“That’s enough,” Ozerov said. “We have time. _Otpusti yego._”

These last words saw the cloth removed from Steve’s face. The restraints were undone, and Steve took in the scene before him. Ozerov looked excited, but it was marred by the look he gave Billy.

“You _knew,_” Ozerov said. “You _knew_ all this about the girl.”

Billy glared back, unadulterated hatred in his eyes. “Yeah.”

“You should not have kept this from us,” Ozerov snarled. “If we are to work together to _find_ this girl, we cannot keep _secrets._”

The last sentence caused Steve’s stomach to drop. “Please…” he breathed. “_Please_ don’t hurt her…”

Ozerov looked over at Steve, a smile spreading across his face, smoothing out the glare into a far more terrifying smirk of satisfaction. “Do not worry, Butterscotch, I have no intention of _hurting_ her. She is _far_ too valuable to kill.”

Steve’s eyes fell closed, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over his cheeks.

“She _can’t _be left alive,” Billy said incredulously.

Steve’s eyes snapped open. He looked at Billy, who looked murderous.

Ozerov turned back to Billy, smirk still in place. “Why not?” he asked. “She is useful. You Americans have succeeded in creating a… _superpower?_”

Ozerov looked over at Steve, trying to echo the words that he’d used. Steve’s heart began to thump in his chest, a feeling of fear rising in his chest that, for once, was not for himself.

“Colonel Ozerov…” Steve breathed, his eyes wide. “Don’t…”

“She’s _dangerous,_” Billy said. “We find her, and we _kill _her.”

Ozerov laughed arrogantly. “Why do we have to _kill _her?” he chuckled. “Yes, she is _dangerous,_ but she is dangerous to them, also. Butterscotch will help us find her, and he will help us control her.”

“You can’t _control_ her,” Billy growled, closing the gap between him and Ozerov. “You can’t control _him, _either. I _tried._ Now, _he_ isn’t a threat, but _her…_ you can’t _imagine_ what she could do.”

Ozerov laughed.

“Ozerov, I’m telling you, _don’t-_” Steve started, but was cut off by one of the soldiers delivering another blow to the stomach that sent him doubling over onto his knees, watching the situation unfold before his eyes. The soldiers either side of him kept a hand on him, waiting, ever obedient, for orders.

“There is more than _one_ way to control a man,” Ozerov said. “We can use her. She can help us take down the government that left you to _die_. And maybe we can work out what makes her so _special_. Maybe we can try to recreate it – make others of our own-”

_BANG!_

Steve flinched, his eyes wide as he couldn’t tear them away from the scene in front of him. Billy grabbed Ozerov by the throat and slammed him against the wall, his feet dangling, unable to touch the ground. The soldiers let go of Steve – not that he could go anywhere; Billy and Ozerov were between him and the door – and pulled out their guns, pointing them at Billy.

Ozerov was struggling against Billy, his legs trying to find some purchase against the wall. His mouth was open, gasping for air. His lips were moving, trying desperately to form something that might have been words. His eyes were bulging, turning towards the soldiers. The soldiers were shouting unintelligible commands in Russian at Billy, overlapping each other and echoing off the walls to create an incomprehensible cacophony.

“_Stop!_”

“_Dostatochno!_”

“_Otpusti yego!_”

“_My tebya ub'yem!_”

Ozerov’s lips were still moving, finally managing to choke out a single command.

“_Ubey yego!_” Ozerov gasped.

The guns cocked – Steve tried to pull himself back out of the way –

“Sorry, Colonel,” Billy hissed, black lines creeping up the blood vessels in his neck and face –

A jet of black smoke seemed to spill out of Billy, shooting straight into Ozerov’s open mouth. The Russian was powerless to stop, his eyes widening in terror – a terror that Steve was all too familiar with. Billy’s arm started to shake, but the smoke that connected him to Ozerov seemed to be holding him up. His knees started to buckle, and Ozerov landed on his feet, standing up straight as the smoke still continued to pour out of Billy’s mouth and into Ozerov’s. As Steve watched Billy, he could see the black lines that tainted his skin start to recede from his chest upwards, slowly drawing towards his lips, leaving pale skin behind –

The smoke suddenly left Billy’s lips altogether, the last of it pouring into Ozerov. Billy collapsed to the floor like a puppet with his strings cut. Steve scrambled forwards, placing a hand on his shoulder –

“_Stop!_”

Steve looked up at Ozerov’s command. It wasn’t aimed at him though; Ozerov was looking at the soldiers, both of whom had their guns still trained on Billy.

Steve felt Billy stir under his hand and looked back down at him. His head was on the floor, face tilted towards Steve. Steve could feel him breathing, his eyes cracking open slightly.

“…_Harrington?_” Billy breathed.

Steve was stunned, his brain completely incapable of forming any coherent thought as Ozerov barked an order to the soldiers.

“_Vzyat' ikh v tyur'mu. Sobrat' ikh vmeste._”

The soldiers looked dubiously at Ozerov before bending down to follow his command. One of them grabbed Steve’s arms, taking some tape Steve had previously completely overlooked and tying his wrists together.

“Wait – _hold on-_” Steve protested, unable to take his eyes away from Billy.

Steve didn’t know if Billy was unconscious or simply completely incapable of moving independently, but he suffered himself to be lifted up by the other soldier, his eyes closed and his head lolling against his chest.

“Billy,” Steve called out softly, hoping for a reaction – something – _anything _– to let him know Billy could hear him.

He was disappointed. Billy was dragged out of the room, completely unresponsive to the world. Steve found himself being pushed after him, following him into the stairwell. Steve threw a glance over his shoulder, looking at Ozerov as he stood alone in the room. The Colonel looked up and his eyes met with Steve’s for the briefest second.

Steve would never forget that look, the Russian’s eyes darkened as his blood vessels ran black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. This chapter took me ages to write. I did so much research into how waterboarding works, and now have some WEIRD targeted ads(?????) and am possibly on some CIA watchlist, but IT WAS FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES ONLY!!! *looks pointedly at the man in the trench coat outside my door* Apparently the average length of time people last being waterboarded for is 14-18 seconds, so yeah, Steve's pride was shot. (Also I found a fun(?) article of accounts of people who have been waterboarded for academic/training/protesting purposes and someone admitted to being descended from a bunny rabbit, just to show how unreliable waterboarding is as a method of extracting information.)
> 
> To be perfectly honest, I really struggled to work out Steve's character this chapter. The first scene was never going to be the only scene feat. waterboarding, but by far the worst one to set up that atmosphere of fear. I hadn't quite intended to break him THAT much though, it just kind of... happened... and once it did, it was difficult trying to pull him back into himself, to get him grounded enough where he would find some sort of strength to resist.
> 
> Well anyway, you know how you've all been saying in the comments "I wonder where Billy's head is in all this"? Guess what's coming next chapter...


	25. Part 3 Chapter 4: Emotions Are Tricky Things Indeed

**August 1985, Hawkins (Upside Down)**

_He ran. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest as he sprinted through the trees. The pain of his fight with that utterly confounding man, so inconsequential and yet so important, was forgotten in the feeling of his feet pounding against the trees. He pushed his body further than it had ever been pushed. He had to get to that light – that way into that world…_

_Freed from the shackles of his pretence, freed from the tether of the only one ever to succeed in defying him, he burst into the clearing and stopped to take in the sight before him._

_The crack in the ground glowed red, the light welcome to his eyes. It was his hope, it was aim, it could be his destruction or his salvation._

_He walked towards it, almost entranced. Whether it was him or his host leading, he did not know. He did not care. It did not matter. It was inconsequential. He stood over the Gate, gazing into the depths, making out the silhouette beyond._

_Her._

_His destruction. The one who he needed to destroy in order to live. This was beyond vengeance, this was survival. A bitter, savage game with their lives at stake. Only one would live at the end. And they both knew it._

_She was not alone, though. There was another with her. One that made his heart soar. Wait. Not his heart. His host’s heart._

_He knelt down at the Gate. So what if this was what his host wanted? It did not matter. He would go through the Gate soon enough anyway. He would destroy the girl. If his host wanted to see his loved one once more, he would allow it. It would not make a difference._

_He stretched out his hand. He wanted to reach her – to touch her – to feel her once more. There was no rational reason for this, this was purely his host’s emotions. Powerful emotions that had been his downfall once before. _

_Emotions were such an inconvenience, but such a tool if used correctly. And he had used them. He had used them on that man – that child who had dared to try to die rather than accept him. That was something he had never experienced before. Everyone he had ever tried to control – one fundamental thing they had all feared above all else was death. They accepted him because they had feared death more. This man had been dying. That should have been enough. But something – some prior knowledge of him, of what was at stake – had left the man begging for death, because the man had feared _him _more than the end._

_Emotions were tricky things indeed._

-:-

**September 1985, Russia**

He didn’t know where they were taking him. He didn’t have the energy to fight, to care, even to lift his head. He simply suffered himself to be dragged. He could hear footsteps behind him – he wasn’t alone – but he didn’t bother to open his eyes.

Almost in another world, through whatever fog was clouding his ears, he heard a key scrape in a lock. Whoever was carrying him didn’t bother carefully putting him down, dragging him a few extra feet and dropping him. He hit the ground with a thud.

He heard a second thud next to him, before a bang of a heavy door and a key scrape in the lock again, and _at last,_ everything was still.

He felt the floor pressing against his cheek, the cold of the concrete biting against his skin in a way that was both uncomfortable and soothing at the same time. He’d spent so long being so very, _very _cold, and revelling in the ice that bit through his skin. Feeling his own body reject it was something new, something welcoming. He felt a shiver run through his body.

“Billy,” a voice said next to him.

_Of course. Harrington._

A hand gently rested itself on his shoulder. He flinched at the touch, pulling himself away.

“Billy, look at me,” Harrington said softly. There was too much care, too much familiarity in that voice. After everything that had happened, Harrington was sat there, thinking that he _knew_ him now.

“It’s gone, isn’t it?” Harrington said. “The Mind Flayer, it’s left you.”

_The Mind Flayer…_ what a stupid fucking name. The thing that had lived inside his head, controlling his actions, influencing his thoughts, a monster from the darkest nightmares – a monster that _made_ the darkest nightmares – and the only name anyone had for it was out of a fucking _game._

“Billy, please talk to me.”

His voice was so _gentle, _so sympathetic. Billy hated it. He cracked his eyes open. Ste– _Harrington _was sat in front of him, bent over him with altogether too much _caring_ in his eyes. Like Billy was someone worth caring _about._ Like he _hadn’t _–

He didn’t want to think about it.

He turned his head, pushing himself up just enough to turn it away from Harrington.

“Fuck off,” he breathed.

It felt good telling Harrington to fuck off. He didn’t want to see his face. That face that had crumpled in pain and despair –

_No._ He wasn’t thinking about that.

Harrington was, irritatingly, not backing off.

“Billy, come on, don’t do this to yourself. I know you’re hurting; I can’t _imagine_ what you must be feeling right now-”

“Then don’t fucking _bother,_” Billy hissed, finally scrambling away. He curled into himself in the corner of the cell, pulling his knees close to his chest.

“Billy, _please,_” Harrington said with far too much understanding. “I _know_ how hard this must be, but it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t _you._”

“You don’t fucking _know _me!” Billy spat. “What that – that _thing_ told you, it was all lies. It wasn’t real – _none _of it!”

Billy felt tears pricking at his eyes. He angrily wiped them away on the back of his hand, pulling his knees tighter into himself, burying his hands in his hair – _God, it was such a mess_. Harrington stayed where he was, falling silent. He didn’t bother looking over at Steve – _Harrington! – _letting him stretch his two brain cells on his own for a little –

“Bullshit.”

The word caught Billy by surprise. He turned to him, some ember of anger flaring up as much as it could.

“_Excuse me?_”

“Everything you said being a lie,” Harrington said, pushing himself back against the opposite wall, leaning back casually, giving Billy an overly analytical look. “That’s bullshit. It made too much sense to me. Too much sense of _you_. And I’ve seen that thing before, I _know_ what it’s like. It’s never made up such sophisticated shit before.”

Billy gave him a glare and turned back around into his corner.

“Do you want to know what _I _think?” Harrington asked.

“Do I get a _choice?_” Billy growled quietly.

“_I _think…” Harrington began, giving no indication that he’d heard Billy, “that the Mind Flayer used you. Used your memories and your life to try and manipulate me. It tried to make us into friends, tried to create some bond between us that it could exploit. So it used your memories and your life to try and _fake_ being you. Did a pretty convincing job, too. Stop me if I’m getting off track here.”

Billy didn’t bother responding. Harrington could think what he liked. They weren’t friends – they were _never_ friends – they weren’t – they weren’t – _they weren’t!_

“So it finds me in the Upside Down,” Harrington was musing. “It starts trying to fool me, maybe work out who I am, what I’m _doing_ there… But what I _don’t _get is why it took it so long to try and _flay_ me. It must have had me alone for at _least_ a month. Why didn’t it just kill me or flay me outright? I mean, I don’t know if you remember anything, I don’t know, is it like you’ve been asleep or something?”

“No,” Billy said before he could stop himself.

Harrington, thank _God, _shut up at that. Billy didn’t look at him, but he could feel Harrington’s eyes on him, watching, _waiting…_

“It wasn’t…” Billy began, surprising himself. His voice was barely above a whisper. “It wasn’t like I was asleep… Or like I was _dreaming_ or some shit…”

Steve – _Harrington, for fuck’s sake!_ – didn’t say a word. He just sat there, waiting patiently for Billy to talk.

“I was there for it all,” Billy said, his voice barely audible, but in the silence of the cell, the acoustics carried it back to Harrington. “I remember _everything_ that happened. I had – I had _control_ over some things. It – it _wanted_ to kill you. It _wanted_ to kill Karen. But it didn’t. Because _I _didn’t want to kill… her.”

“Karen?” Harrington asked. “As in _Karen Wheeler?_”

“Yeah,” Billy breathed. “I was on my way to meet her when my car crashed. Turns out neither of us showed. She had some attack of the conscience, decided that a recently graduated high school senior _wasn’t_ a substitute for a family. So when I showed up at the pool after… after _everything_… she tried to – to explain – and I – I felt this _anger, _this_ – _this _hate…_ and I wanted to – to _hurt _her. But I didn’t. I stopped myself. And then… _again…_ when I was in the – the Other Side or whatever you call it, and I saw _you_…”

-:-

**July 1985, Hawkins (Upside Down)**

_Of course. Of all the people to be trapped here with, it would have to be _Steve Harrington.

_“Steve Harrington? Steve fucking Harrington? What the fuck are you doing here?”_

_“I saw a light,” Steve said. He was being cautious. Far too cautious._

_“Yeah, no shit,” Billy rolled his eyes. “I meant _here_. In this place.” _

_“Jumped in,” Steve said. He _really _wasn’t letting his guard down._

_Billy snorted. “What the fuck did you do that for?”_

_“Wasn’t exactly in love with the other options at the time.”_

_Billy snorted again. “Must have been some pretty shitty options then.”_

_Steve glared at him. “How did you end up here then, Hargrove?”_

_“Car crashed. Woke up here. Was probably a few days ago.”_

_“Is that _it?_”_

_“Is _what_ it?”_

_“Your car crashed, and you just… woke up here? In my experience there’s usually a little more to it than that.”_

_A surge of anger Billy couldn’t explain rose up in his chest. Something about the condescending tone – no, that wasn’t it, it was the fact that he knew _anything _about this place at all had Billy on edge. He didn’t know _how_ Steve knew this, but it angered him for reasons he couldn’t explain._

_“You have _experience_ with this shit?”_

_Steve shrugged. “Yeah, a bit.”_

_“No shit.”_

_Steve was – he’d _known_ about this. About the girl with the powers. He was a part of this. He was with _them. _The anger rose in his chest. He wanted to _hurt _Steve. Not like he’d wanted to hurt people before, not like he’d wanted to hurt Harrington at the Byers’ house – Steve had been an outlet then – no, this was deliberate. He felt some inexplicable urge for vengeance. He wanted to take that face and pummel it more than it had already been. He wanted to slam Steve against the tree, to break his already broken body and watch his life bleed from him on the floor, he wanted to –_

_“Impressed, Hargrove?”_

_There was no real reason for his anger. No reason for this. He _didn’t _want to hurt Steve. That other part of him was speaking louder now. No, Steve was _useful. _It didn’t make sense to hurt him, he didn’t _want _to hurt him, he didn’t know where that anger came from…_

_“Not exactly. Just realising you might be my best chance of getting out of here.”_

_Steve scowled. “Well, sorry to disappoint you, but you’re not exactly mine, so I’m going to go.”_

_“Wait!” Billy called. Steve couldn’t leave. Billy couldn’t go back to being alone. He wanted to stay with Steve. He had a handle on that anger now. “Look, you don’t like me, I get it. But we’re stuck here together. You can try going it alone, but we’ll have a much better chance of staying alive here if we stick together.”_

_Steve gave a bitter laugh. “You see, that’s where you’ve misunderstood,” he said. “I don’t not want you around because I don’t like you, I don’t want you around because you’re a fucking psycho. You nearly punched me into a coma because you didn’t like your sister’s friend-”_

_“She’s not my sister.” This was a far more familiar anger. One he’d held for years. Maxine _wasn’t _his sister. She sure as hell wasn’t his sister after that stunt she’d pulled at the mall._

_“I don’t give a shit!” Steve threw his arms up. “My point is that I honestly think that having you around might one day kill me!”_

_The truth in Harrington’s words hit Billy like a sledgehammer. Steve was right. He’d hurt Heather because she’d gotten too close. Because she was _convenient. _He’d nearly hurt Karen too._

_But that was before. They weren’t aware of what was going on. Steve at least had _some _awareness of this. He’d be careful around Billy – _

_Billy would need to be careful around him –_

_Billy had some control over his anger now –_

_He had to know where Steve was –_

_He _had_ to know where Steve was._

_“You managed to find any food yet?”_

-:-

**September 1985, Russia**

“And you managed to stop it…” Harrington finished for him.

Billy swallowed, uncurling himself slightly. He didn’t look over at Steve though, his eyes stayed on his knees.

“Yeah,” he breathed.

“Any particular reason?” Harrington asked.

Billy shrugged. “Not really…” he said. _Fuck, why did his voice sound so goddamn pathetic? _“I guess… It didn’t _need _you. I didn’t _want_ to hurt you. I don’t know – _Harrington, I don’t fucking know!_”

“Okay,” Steve said calmly – _shit, he’s Harrington! His name is Harrington! And for the love of – was Harrington trying to soothe him?_

“Maybe that feeling of not wanting to hurt people was strong enough then. I’ve seen it happen before.”

“Then why wasn’t it strong enough to save _Heather?_” Billy growled. “All those people, if I could stop it from killing _Karen, _if I was strong enough to stop it from killing _you_, why couldn’t I save all those other people? Heather and her family, the reporter, there was an old lady, if I could stop it from hurting _you,_ why the _fuck _couldn’t I stop it with _them?_”

“None of this is your fault, Billy-”

“_Don’t call me that!_” Billy snarled. It was too _familiar._

Harrington fell silent. Billy turned his head over his shoulder – that half-glance girls would give in the street to make sure they weren’t being followed. Not that Billy went for that kind of thing.

“It was like…” Billy began – _why the fuck was he opening up to Harrington of all people about this? _“There were times when… I was more in control. Like it felt like _I _was the one doing things. Other times… it felt like I was doing things voluntarily. Like… like I was watching a film, or some video game that I wasn’t playing. I was _trying _to influence my own actions, _trying_ to have some kind of control, but it – it wasn’t-”

“Listening?” Harrington supplied.

Billy snorted. “It was a bit more extreme than _that_.”

“Was it like you were on _drugs_ or something?”

Billy shot an exasperated look over his shoulder, before turning back into himself.

“_No,_ you moron,” he said. “It was…”

Billy searched for the words to describe it. But the truth was there was no analogy, nothing he could use to relate to it.

“It was like this voice in my head,” Billy said. “Like… _I _was in control, almost, but it was like… it was _telling _me what to do. It was giving me advice. Telling me how to get what I wanted. Only… it _wasn’t _this voice. It felt like my own ideas, my own thoughts, my own feelings, but they… they _weren’t._ And I couldn’t get these ideas to go away. Like… a part of me _knew_ that they were bad ideas. A part of me _knew _that they weren’t mine. But they seemed to make so much _sense…_”

Billy ran his hands into his hair again, clenching them into fists near his scalp. He closed his eyes, taking deep, shuddering breaths as he thought of that idea that had taken root in his head – back when he had watched Harrington choking on his own blood –

_No. He wasn’t going there._

“It doesn’t – it doesn’t _like_ possessing people,” Billy said finally. He didn’t know what made him say it, he just wanted to think about something else – anything else – maybe _explain_ to Harrington why he’d done what he had. “It only does it when it’s necessary. It didn’t have a _use _for you when I first saw you there. When it – when it takes over someone, it’s like… it’s like it’s opening up a part of itself to the vulnerabilities of its host.”

“The – _what, _sorry?” Harrington echoed.

“Its _host,_” Billy repeated exasperatedly. “_Jesus_, did you ever pay attention in biology?”

“Billy, you _know_ that everything beyond the eighth grade went over my head.”

“Well,” Billy tried to make his voice sound like he was explaining something to a toddler. “When you’ve got a parasite or something, it likes to find a host body that’s _durable._ If it _kills_ its host, it’s not a great parasite. If the host is dying, it’ll leave. That – that _thing_ doesn’t like possessing people for no reason. _Especially _when the humans are in the state that you were in. They make it _vulnerable._”

Harrington fell silent. Billy got the impression he was in deep thought. Not that he checked – not that he _cared –_

“So what changed?”

Billy finally turned slightly and looked at Harrington for longer than a passing glance. “It realised how important you were.”

-:-

**July 1985, Hawkins (Upside Down)**

_“What _was_ that thing?” Billy gasped._

_“We call it the Mind Flayer,” Steve said breathlessly._

_“Catchy.”_

_If not a little insulting._

_“_I_ didn’t name it,” Steve said indignantly. “I think the shitheads took it from that game they always play.”_

_“Dungeons and Dragons?”_

_Steve gave Billy a questioning look._

_“Max talks about it a lot,” Billy explained._

_Steve shrugged. “Look, with that thing around, we’ve got to be careful,” he said, sounding desperate and a little unhinged._

_“Why?” Billy asked. “What’s so dangerous about it?”_

_“Didn’t you _see_ that thing?”_

_“Yeah, but what will it do?” Billy played dumb. “Like – eat us or something?”_

_“No, it’s – it – like – controls people’s minds. Makes people do completely insane stuff. It wants to take over the world or something.”_

_Billy felt another stab of inexplicable offence that was not his own, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t important._

_“It’s what happened to Will Byers,” Steve explained. “He got caught by it last year. He ended up basically summoning an army of these monsters to Hawkins Lab which killed a load of people.”_

_“What?” How in the name of God did Steve know about _that?

_“It’s… hard to explain…”_

_“Try me.”_

_Steve looked up at him. “So – uh – you know how Will Byers went missing a couple of years ago?”_

_Billy raised an eyebrow. “It was before my time, but yeah – wait, was he taken by that thing?”_

_“No,” Steve shook his head. “Well, _kind of, _I don’t really know how to explain it…”_

_Billy waited while Steve found the right words._

_“It’s like…” Steve began, running a hand over his face. “There was this monster, this – the kids called it a Demogorgon. It’s from here, and it got loose in Hawkins. There was another Gate. And anyway, this Demogorgon – it got loose, and it took Will Byers to _here – _the Upside Down. Only… Will Byers managed to escape it and hid around here. He couldn’t get home though. So Nancy’s brother and his friends and the Chief and Joyce Byers and Jonathan started looking for him, and they started to work little parts of it all out.”_

_“Okay…” That explained the kids and Jonathan, but not _Steve._ “So how did you get involved?”_

_He’d asked Steve this question once before to no avail, but Steve seemed to be being a little more forthcoming now._

_“I had a party,” Steve said, looking away from Billy. “Here – in my house. It was as low-key as possible. Me, Tommy and Carol, and I invited Nancy. She brought along her friend Barb Holland.”_

_“Wait – the girl who died from the chemical leak?”_

_Steve gave him a dark look. “No, she – uh…” Steve didn’t meet his eyes. “She cut herself, and while she was cleaning herself up, the rest of us all jumped in the pool. She came back to find us going upstairs – she didn’t want Nancy going up to _Steve Harrington’s _room – you know, what with me being the biggest player Hawkins High has ever seen – _had _ever seen,” Steve corrected himself. “Anyway, we went upstairs and Barb waited or something out by the pool. Jonathan had a photo of her sitting on the edge of the pool.”_

_“Wait, _Jonathan Byers _was there?”_

_Steve gave a snort of laughter. “Not exactly, he was looking for Will in the woods, heard Carol screaming because Tommy was threatening to push her into the pool, came running, found us, and took a load of photos of us without us realising.”_

_Billy’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t known about _that _part of the story._

_“You’re kidding? And you became _friends_ with this guy?”_

_Steve snorted. “Not then, _Hell _no. At the time I threw his camera on the floor.”_

_“I’m not surprised, if it was me, it would have gone up his ass.”_

_“Anyway, one of the photos was Barb on the edge of the pool, and Nancy saw this and went to Jonathan to try and get his help. They started getting close, started to realise it was a monster and went hunting for it. I got the wrong impression, thought she was cheating on me, got _really _pissed off, Tommy started spray painting stuff all over the movie theatre about Nancy being a slut, I got into a fight with Jonathan, I actually – I actually said some pretty unforgivable things about him and his family…”_

_Steve ran a hand over his face._

_“Anyway, after the fight, I just got so _sick _of Tommy and Carol bitching about Nancy. So I left them and realised I’d been a massive douchebag. So I went over to Jonathan’s to apologise._

_“Turns out, I’d come at the worst possible time. He and Nancy were _right _in the middle of setting some monster trap. And while I was there, it came. It came bursting through the wall, and they tried to lead it to this bear trap, but it vanished, so they told me to go, and I _did_, I – I _nearly _did. Only – I realised it had come back. So I went back inside to help. It turned out they weren’t doing quite so well against it, the trap had gone wrong, so I picked up that bat that Max tried to crush your balls with, and knocked it into the bear trap.”_

_Billy felt a surge of anger rise in his chest. He didn’t realise he was breathing hard. Inexplicable anger at something he had no reason to feel was taking over him. So _he’d _been the one to hurt that Demogorgon, he had _dared _to fight that thing – dared to _win…

_No. He would be patient. He would find out what else he knew._

_“Anyway,” Steve said, running his hand through his hair. “After that, Nancy and I talked. She explained what had happened, and that she and Jonathan _weren’t _hooking up behind my back, they’d just been trying to find out what had happened to Will and Barb. Turned out Barb was dead but Will was alive. And then the Chief and Joyce found Will, and it was over._

_“Only it wasn’t. Not for _Nancy, _at least. She felt so guilty about what happened to Barb, she blamed herself. Everyone else around her was moving on, I was – I was trying to _help _her, to get her back to normal. It worked for a while, but Nance – she… she found out that the Hollands still thought she was alive, and she wanted to tell them what had happened. I told her that she couldn’t. Anyway, that kind of helped her realise that the ‘normal’ I’d tried to help create for her wasn’t what she’d needed. She’d just been playing along. Our whole… our whole fucking _relationship _was just a lie she’d told herself. And she finally told me she’d never loved me. It was all just… bullshit.”_

_“So she went running back to Jonathan?” Billy asked._

_Steve shrugged. “Yeah. And around that time, Dustin found himself his little pet. Only it turned out… it wasn’t so friendly. It was a baby Demogorgon called Dart. And it got loose. And _somehow,_ don’t ask me how, I’m still trying to work that out for myself, I got roped into helping Dustin deal with it. It had escaped, so we set a trap for it in the junkyard. Turned out Dustin’s pet had friends. So when they came…”_

_“Everything went wrong?” That foreign rage was burning within his chest. He wanted to _hurt _Steve, to punish him for what he’d done._

_“Yeah,” Steve said. “I ended up defending the kids – your sister was there, you know…”_

_“She’s not my sister,” Billy corrected automatically._

_Steve gave him an unimpressed look._

_“So you killed them then?” Billy asked. There was a burning need to _know._ “These baby Demogorgons?”_

_Steve gave a soft laugh and shook his head. “No, they – uh – they got called away. They went to Hawkins Lab. Killed everyone in there – well, _almost_ everyone. Hopper, Mrs Byers, Mike and Will got out alive, and so did this doctor… I think his name was Doctor Owens or something, but – we found out later Will Byers – well, the Mind Flayer, anyway – had basically called all these Demodogs-”_

_“Sorry, _what?_”_

_Steve looked up at Billy. Billy was sure he had an utterly incredulous look on his face. Some inexplicable sense of pride felt attacked by the utterly ridiculous names Steve was coming out with._

_“Dustin’s idea,” Steve gave him a small grin, as though he understood. But he didn’t. Billy had gone to great lengths to make sure that Steve _wouldn’t _understand._

_“Anyway, we followed them to the Lab, and when Mrs Byers and Hopper and Mike came out with Will, we went back to the Byers’ place. They started trying to talk to Will. They started trying to get through to him using memories, tried to get him to talk to them. So he used Morse Code to talk to us. He told us to close the Gate.”_

_Billy suddenly remembered something that he was _certain _had never happened to him. Looking out from a chair in an unknown room, his fingers tapping nervously as he looked into Joyce Byers’ face as she talked about a rainbow ship. The Clash was playing. It was so _vivid…

_So that was what had happened._

_“So we did. There was this girl, she had these powers. Like… _superpowers. _I don’t really know… She was from Hawkins Lab. Nancy, Jonathan and Mrs Byers went to get the monster out of Will-”_

_Billy suddenly remembered lying, tied to a bed that he had never seen before, thrashing against the bed, a red hot poker in his side._

_“-Some of the kids and I went to the tunnels to set them on fire, to draw the Demodogs away from the Lab-” Steve continued._

_Billy remembered a searing, burning sensation that had only seemed to exist in his mind. It was like a phantom pain from a missing limb._

_“-And Hopper took this girl to the Gate to close it,” Steve finished._

_He remembered seeing her in a place he’d never been before. Seeing her silhouette, so _small, _on a thin metal structure, hovering in the air, her hands outstretched. He remembered reaching for her, feeling her pushing him back._

_And Steve had been a part of it._

_“So that’s how you became the resident babysitter to a group of nerdy middle-schoolers,” Billy summarised, trying to keep the tremor of anger out of his voice._

_Steve snorted with laughter. “Yeah. That’s how I ended up basically becoming a childminder.”_

_“You’re still close to them, though. Like… you’re still friends with them all?”_

_Steve shrugged. “Yeah…” he said. “When you go through shit like that together, you don’t really get much of a say. Somehow, they talked me into sneaking them into R-rated films in the mall. And they _all_ asked me for free ice cream.”_

_“Wow,” Billy laughed. “Their parents must _love _your positive influence.”_

_“Hey, I’ll have you know I’m on first name terms with Mrs Byers, Mrs Henderson and Mrs Wheeler.”_

_He felt some urge to comment about Steve not being the only one on first name terms with Karen Wheeler, but resisted the urge. Instead, he fell silent, thinking…_

_So Steve knew the girl. Steve was _close _to them. He could use this – he wouldn’t give up Billy, not yet, Billy might still be useful, but _Steve… _Steve was here. The way he looked at Billy showed no small degree of trust. He’d been right to wait, to see how he’d ended up here, to see what he knew. He was glad he hadn’t killed him now. Steve could be useful._

_He just needed to bring Steve under his control._

-:-

**September 1985, Russia**

“I lost control then…” Billy said. “It happened… Like… I could _see _what I was doing… I _knew _what I was going to do, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t _stop _myself…”

“_It,_” Steve corrected softly.

“Me, _It_ – it was all the fucking _same!_” Billy slammed his hand against the wall in frustration. “Do you know what it’s _like? _Being a fucking passenger in your own _body?_ To watch as it starts trying to hurt your friends, your – your fucking _family?_”

Steve didn’t answer. _Good. Anything he said would be insulting at this point._

“It was like this… this _rage_ would take over… Like when you’re in a fight, and all you can do is keep _hitting, _because that’s all you _know._ It was like that… only worse – _much _worse. I didn’t _want _to do it, I didn’t _want _to try and hurt Max, but it was like… _survival, _you know?”

Billy was desperate for Steve to understand, to _forgive him._

“I thought I was going to _die_ if I didn’t… It was like… like being a fucking _animal._ You must know the feeling, you fought those monsters, I’ve _seen _you fight those monsters, you don’t give a shit about them because they want nothing more than to _kill _you.”

Steve – _Harrington! Fuck, how long had he been doing that? _– made a soft noise of affirmation.

“Well, it was like that with me,” Billy said. “Only… a part of me _knew_ the people that were after me. I could see Max, and I felt like… she was going to _kill _me… And it was like she was _betraying _me… She couldn’t see _me,_ she could only see _it… _And so I hurt her – and there was a part of me that regretted it straight away – but I couldn’t _stop_… My thoughts… they weren’t _mine…_ They talk about all that ‘fight or flight’ bullshit, but this was…”

Billy trailed off. _God, _he even _sounded_ like he was close to tears. He was not about to break down in front of _Harrington_.

Harrington seemed to realise that he wasn’t about to elaborate any further.

“So what happened next?” he asked. “You suggested that we go to the tunnels to get more weapons – _why?_”

There was something in his voice that told Billy that Harrington knew _exactly _what had happened next, but he wanted confirmation.

Billy swallowed down the lump in his throat. “It decided to set a trap for you after it realised how close you were to that _Eleven _girl. It lured you into the tunnels and sent its little monsters after you. Only it underestimated you, Harrington. Didn’t realise you were quite so…”

“Hardcore?”

“_Competent_.”

Harrington made a soft noise that sounded like an indignant huff. Billy took some small semblance of satisfaction.

“So what happened _then?_” Harrington asked. “Did it just _stop trying_ for a little while?”

“No, it decided to try something _different_,” Billy explained. “Emotions had gotten the best of it before, and it had seemed to understand that you were getting _close_ to me. You were… you were _opening up_. So it decided to try to use that against you. Use _my _emotions against you.”

“And that was when you told me about your mom and dad, and about you being…”

“A fucking _faggot?_” Billy finished when Harrington didn’t seem to have the right words. “Yeah.”

Harrington paused for a second. Billy could hear him breathing, and the rustle of his clothes as he changed positions.

“So it _was _real, then?” he finally asked Billy. “You _are _gay?”

Billy found his face screwing up in annoyed confusion. He turned and shot a look over at Harrington, who was sat watching him.

“_What – _How is _that_ the most important thing right now?” Billy snapped.

A slight raise of his eyebrows was the only betrayal of Steve’s sur– _Harrington’s _surprise.

“It’s not,” Harrington said with only a hint of defensiveness. “I’m just curious.”

“Well, it _was _real,” Billy snapped. “Do you want to _make _something of it?”

The threat hung in the air between them, but Harrington wasn’t biting. Instead, he shot Billy a withering look.

“I didn’t make anything of it before, and I’m not about to start now,” he said dismissively. “Like you said – it’s not the most important thing right now.”

“Well – _good,_” Billy huffed, turning back into himself, fully aware that he was sounding like a child. “It’s not like I _wanted _you to know. I didn’t _want _it telling you my fucking _life story_.”

Harrington had the decency to shut up at that. They fell into an uncomfortable silence, Billy curled in on himself. He glanced over at Harrington, but for once, he wasn’t looking over at Billy. He was looking at the door, seemingly lost in thought.

“You know, that’s interesting,” Harrington finally broke the silence. “It using _emotions _to try and get the better of me. Jonathan and Nancy’s brother and Mrs Byers did that last year. They got through to Will by bringing back old memories or something.”

Billy rolled his eyes, fairly certain Harrington couldn’t see him. “Yeah, I _know, _Harrington. You _told _me. I remember. I was there – _sorry, _sorry, _It _was there.”

“Wait,” Harrington sat up straight. “Wait, you _remember _that?”

Harrington pushed himself off the wall and scrambled over to Billy. Billy turned and faced him, confused.

“Yeah…” Billy said slowly. “Why the fuck would I _not?_”

S– _Harrington _looked taken aback by this question. “Because… because it’s not _your_ memory. It’s _Will’s_. It’s the _Mind Flayer’s._ If it’s not _in _you anymore, why would you be able to remember it?”

Billy looked at him, annoyed incredulity flooding through him. “I don’t _know_, Harrington, maybe because I _knew _it once upon a time, and I just haven’t _forgotten _it!”

He was yelling, and he knew it. He didn’t much care – Harrington’s _stupid_ face was just sat there, expectantly looking at him for answers that he didn’t have, like he _hadn’t _been opening up to him for the last – _however_ long it had been – about one of the most confusing and disturbing experiences of his life.

“I don’t know about _any _of this shit!” he snarled. “_You’re _the one with the experience, the – the _expertise,_ so why the fuck don’t _you _tell _me_ what’s going on?”

Harrington had the decency to back off.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and Billy took a small amount of satisfaction at the guilt he heard in his voice. “I’m just… trying to understand…”

“Yeah, well,” Billy snapped, but there was no real heat behind it, “I’ve been trying to understand for _months, _so…”

Harrington sat against the wall, this time positioning himself next to Billy.

“So it was playing me,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” Billy breathed. “Right up until you started dying.”

-:-

**August 1985, Hawkins (Upside Down)**

_Steve’s head fell against his leg, asleep once more. Something in Billy’s heart clenched at the sight of blood on his lips. The feeling wasn’t from the… _Other Guy,_ as Billy had taken to calling him. That emotion was entirely his own._

_An overwhelming sense of despair seemed to overtake him at the realisation that Steve wasn’t going to survive. He knew it – by the look in his eyes before they’d fallen shut, Steve knew it too – and there was nothing either of them could do about it._

_They just had to wait for it to happen._

_Billy hoped it would be peaceful for him – well, at least, _more _peaceful than it already was. He hoped that Steve would slip away quietly in his sleep, that his breath would just stop coming. Involuntarily, Billy ran a hand through Steve’s hair. It wasn’t like it had ever been when he’d known Steve in Hawkins – the _real _Hawkins. It was sweat-slicked, greasy, dirt and slime matting it into clumps. The state of his hair – something Billy knew was his pride and joy – was a surprisingly accurate metaphor for the state of the man himself. He looked terrible – pale, with heavy bags under his eyes, his face looking skull-like as the skin pinched against him, hollowed out cheekbones just one illustration of just how thin he was…_

_Steve gave a shiver in his sleep. Billy pulled the blanket closer around him, tucking it further under his chin. He knew he needed to clear out the bucket, but Steve nestled his head further into Billy’s thigh. Billy rested his hand on Steve’s back, on top of the blanket, and started rubbing between his shoulder blades._

_Tears pricked at Billy’s eyes, and he angrily wiped them away. He would never admit it to Steve, or _anyone, _for that matter, but in the _Other Guy’s _attempts to build a connection between them, to create some kind of emotional bond for it to exploit, he’d started to _care_ for Steve. The idea of losing him… the only company he had here, the only person who he felt knew him – _really _knew him, courtesy of the _Other Guy _making him open up, the only person who’d accepted him for who he truly was – was more than Billy could bear. He didn’t want to watch him slip away, to watch him _die…

_His heart couldn’t take it._

_Steve made a noise and rolled away from Billy, pushing the covers away. He was breathing hard, each intake of breath sounding like a death rattle, but eventually, Steve settled on his back. The new position didn’t seem to be doing much good for him – if anything, the death rattle became worse, so Billy got up and walked round to the other side of the bed. He gently angled Steve’s face towards im, crouching down on the floor beside the bed and positioning Steve so he was lying on his side._

_Steve’s breathing seemed to ease slightly, the weight of whatever was blocking his lungs no longer pushing straight down on top of his airway. Billy pushed away a stray strand of hair that had fallen across Steve’s face, before bringing both hands over his own mouth and letting out a breath that was far too shaky for his liking._

There was a way to save him.

_The thought that came into his head hit him like a stone. It was the _Other Guy’s _thought, he knew that much, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a good one. At least, it certainly wasn’t as bad as some of the other ideas it had put in his head._

He wouldn’t like it, but it would save him.

_Steve had always viewed it as the worst-case scenario. But now… he was _dying. _Steve didn’t want to die, he’d made that much very clear. But here he was, drowning in his own blood. Nothing Billy could do would save him. Nothing except this._

_He’d told Steve he would do whatever it took to keep him alive. If _this_ was what that meant, then so be it._

-:-

**September 1985, Russia**

“When you collapsed in the woods,” Billy explained, “it wanted to back off. It wanted to wait until you got better.”

“Only I never did,” Harrington pointed out.

“Only you never did,” Billy echoed with a shrug. “It realised you were dying – _I _realised you were dying. There was nothing I could do to save you. But _it _could do something.”

“It could flay me,” Harrington finished.

Billy let out a long exhale. “Yeah.”

Harrington leaned back against the wall, running his hands through his hair as he looked up at the ceiling.

“So you took me to Starcourt,” he said, not looking at Billy. “You got it to try.”

Billy nodded. “But then you went and screwed everything up by changing your mind.”

-:-

**August 1985, Hawkins (Upside Down)**

_Billy’s heart broke as he let the _Other Guy _take control, pushing Steve down onto the stone. Steve was fighting, a manic desperation in his eyes. Billy saw fear, panic and agony mixing together in those dark brown depths, begging Billy not to do this…_

_Billy didn’t have a choice, though. Not to do this was to let Steve die. He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t._

_The black vortex was descending onto Steve. Billy took a step back. He saw Steve twist his body, trying to get off the stone, to get off the memorial and away from the shadow. As though his body would let him._

_Steve’s final struggles were not enough. The shadow descended onto him, obscuring him in darkness._

_Suddenly, Billy could feel emotions that were not his own, not the _Other Guy’s, _assaulting his mind. He knew in that second that they were Steve’s. He’d experienced something similar before – he’d felt Heather’s fear when she had lain on the floor of that warehouse, but this was stronger, _much _stronger. Steve’s fear felt like it was tearing him in two. Unlike Heather, unlike Tom and Janet Holloway, Bruce Lowe, and all the rest of the people he’d done this to, Steve _knew _what was happening. He was resisting the influence, fighting with every fibre of his being to keep his mind his own._

_A wave of despair crashed over Billy, so strong it almost had him collapsing to the floor, and he knew, he _knew _what it was._

_Steve wanted to die._

_Billy’s heart cracked. If ever there was a moment he would have tried to stop it, it would have been then. But something, some selfish will that Billy could not entirely attribute to the _Other Guy _stopped him. It left him there standing. Because he would not let Steve die. He could not lose him. Not now._

_Suddenly, a bright orange light erupted in the eye of the black tempest around Steve. Billy felt a new kind of pain, a physical, burning pain in his leg. The pain did not belong to him. Billy didn’t have to wonder too long what was causing it. He realised – he’d left the flamethrower leaning against the stone. Steve, fully prepared and willing to die, was burning himself, maiming himself, doing what little he could to stop this._

_It was agony. Billy felt the burning pain in his leg, in his mind. He heard Steve’s screams, almost in another world. The smell of burning flesh was acrid, slightly too sweet on the air, and just so very _wrong _to all his senses. Both to Billy and to the _Other Guy.

_What had Steve done?_

_It was too much. Steve was at the end of his tether. He was going to kill himself – he was going to die – he was fully prepared to do so –_

_Billy could not let Steve die._

_At least he and the _Other Guy _were in agreement on that point._

-:-

**September 1985, Russia**

“I had…” Billy swallowed. “It had never felt that before.”

Harrington looked confused. “Felt _what _before?”

“Your – uh – your _suicidal tendencies,_” Billy said with a bitter laugh. “It wanted you to _live_. Everyone I’d – I’d _encountered _before had wanted to live. You… _didn’t_.”

Harrington looked away from Billy, looking at his knees. He wouldn’t meet Billy’s eyes, but Billy watched him. Ste– _Harrington _– was looking shellshocked, vulnerable…

_Violated._

“How do you know that?” Harrington eventually asked, his voice no more than a raspy breath.

Billy didn’t look at Harrington. “I _felt _it,” he explained. “When that _thing _was trying to control you. I felt how scared you were. I felt it when you wanted to die… I… Steve, I felt _you._”

Steve looked up at him, his eyes shining with something Billy couldn’t put his finger on. Billy turned away, the feeling of guilt that had been gnawing away at him taking on a new, sharper edge.

It seemed Steve didn’t want to share, either. He looked down at his knees again, his eyes closed. He twisted his head slightly, his head bowed, turning his face towards the door with a shake, like a dog trying to rid its ears of water.

“What…” Steve’s eyes stayed tightly shut. “What happened next? …Did you make it to that Gate?”

Billy fell silent, glad Steve couldn’t see his face. A fresh stab of pain twisted into his chest.

“No,” Billy lied. “Do you think I’d be here if I _had?_”

There were some things Steve didn’t need to know_._

-:-

**August 1985, Hawkins (Upside Down)**

_Billy knelt down beside the crack in the ground. The red light illuminated his face… It was bright, so very bright…_

_He could see her silhouette, her long hair falling round her face as she crouched down in a mirror image to him. Tears pricked at his eyes… It was her. It was really her…_

_She _hadn’t _given up on him. She _knew _he was here. She was trying to get to him…_

_His hand was inches from the crack. His fingertips ghosted over the thin membrane… He could see her hand do the same, just beyond the Gate… He could take her hand if he wanted to…_

_He wanted to._

It _wanted to._

_Suddenly, she was gone. Completely vanished into thin air. His hand flung out, pressing into the Gate, trying to get her, trying to catch her –_

_An unseen force sent him flying backwards, landing heavily on his back. His head smacked against the cold, hard ground. Colours flashed across his eyes. When they faded, he was left looking up at the trees in the dark sky, the white flakes drifting down over him, the red light of the Gate gone._

_He knew then that it would not come again._

_How long he lay there for, he didn’t know. He couldn’t find it in him – any part of him – to move. He stared up at the dark sky, the swirling black clouds passing above him. Hopelessness pulled him down, he was drowning in it. He had been so close to her…_

_And that girl had pulled them apart._

_Fresh rage that was not his own tore through him. He had to get back to Steve. If Steve was still alive, then he _had _to use him. If he had Steve, then they could get close to the girl._

_He finally forced himself to his feet. With more effort than he’d realised, he dragged his feet over the dirt._

_It took him a long time – far longer than it had taken to get there – to get back to Starcourt. But when he got there, shock paralysed him at the sight that greeted him._

_People. Actual living, breathing people._

_They were wearing military uniforms. Dark khaki clothes were accentuated by red and yellow decorations. There were two helicopters in the parking lot. A third flew through the air above Billy’s head, away from the mall._

_Billy shrank into the trees across the road. He wasn’t _scared, _but the idea of being discovered by a novel group of unknown people who had _somehow _come to be in the Upside Down was not an idea that appealed either to him or to the _Other Guy. _He watched, waiting…_

_Eventually, the soldiers moved into the mall, leaving only those in the helicopters outside. Billy slipped around the back of them, following the men at a distance as they moved inside._

_His chest tightened at the sight of the streaks of blood that led out of the building._

Steve.

_His suspicions were confirmed as he slipped into the foyer. Steve was no longer where Billy had left him, the only trace of his presence being the flamethrower left on the ground, and the streaks of blood over the tiles. They must have taken him somewhere –_

_It took Billy all of about five seconds to connect Steve’s new absence with the helicopter he had seen flying away from the mall. Rage – again, not his own – burnt bright in him. A desire to find those soldiers, to break them, to _kill _them –_

_No. That wasn’t him. He would be patient._

_He slipped back out of the mall, around behind the helicopters, and back into the trees beyond the mall. He would watch. He would wait._

_Perhaps these soldiers would be useful after all._

-:-

**September 1985, Russia**

Steve leant back against the wall, a hand running through his hair absently.

“So you didn’t make it to the Gate,” Steve said softly. “You came back and found I was gone. So… _then_ what? How’d you end up here in this shithole?”

Billy shrugged. “After they took you, I went back to yours. Got what I needed. Decided the gun was pretty useful.”

Steve gave a soft hum at the back of his throat.

“Anyway, I watched the Russians for a little bit. They were doing – _something _– in the mall. I didn’t go in after trying to work out where you’d gotten to, but I’m pretty sure they were looking for something there.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve shrugged. “They _built _the mall in the first place, anyway.”

“Well, whatever they were doing, it wasn’t until a few days ago that they actually _found _me.”

Steve looked at him again. “What happened?”

Billy gave him a small smile, a shadow of the mischievous grin that had been his signature. “I decided to introduce myself.”

-:-

**September 1985, Hawkins (Upside Down)**

_Billy stood his ground, hands raised as guns were pointing at him from all directions. Instructions were being shouted at him in a language he didn’t understand, before a heavily accented voice emerged over the din._

_“Get on the ground and put your hands on your head!”_

_Billy turned his head towards the voice, obeying the command with a smile settling on his face._

_“I don’t want to hurt you,” Billy said in words that were not his own. “I just want to talk to whoever’s in charge.”_

_His words were met with a certain amount of amused scepticism. Billy couldn’t blame them for it – as far as they were concerned, he was a slightly too thin teenager who looked like he’d been living in the woods for months on end. Which wasn’t far from the truth._

_It also suited the _Other Guy _that they underestimated him._

_“The person in charge is not here,” the English-speaking soldier said, still in that heavy accent. Judging by their clothes, voices, and just about everything he knew about the mall, Billy felt very safe in assuming that these were Russians._

_“Where are they?” Billy asked._

_“Far away,” the soldier said. “But do not worry. You will see him soon enough.”_

_A barked order in Russian had hands grabbing Billy’s own. The _Other Guy _suffered Billy’s wrists to be tied behind his back, even quelling Billy’s own protests. He found himself being led towards one of the helicopters before a soft prick in the side of his neck sent the world spinning._

_He never passed out – the _Other Guy _would not allow it – but the world passed by in a haze. The helicopter was traded for a black jet at an airfield after what Billy guessed was about an hour in the air. The jet did not have the luxury of windows, so when Billy was finally allowed out what felt like hours later, he had no idea where he was._

_It looked cold – sterile, even. The landing strip gave way to a barren landscape, the only feature the large concrete building that looked like it could withstand a mild to moderate nuclear blast. Perhaps that was the point._

_Billy could feel it. He could feel himself drawing close to something – something _powerful. _His heart started beating harder as he walked inside, through the large doors and into the room…_

_His breath left his body at the sight before him. The huge red Gate loomed above him. The charred remnants of a machine directly in line with the wall stood there – a machine far too small to create the Gate that was carved into the wall before him._

_He did not need the soldiers guiding him towards the Gate – both he and the _Other Guy _were in agreement about it – they wanted nothing more than to go through. He was going back…_

_The first step he took into the enormous room was pronounced by several shouts. The light was almost blinding – Billy took in the sight of a machine, almost identical to the one on the other side of the Gate, but bigger, _much _bigger, sending a jet of light straight at the wall._

_The machine must have been how the Russians had opened the Gate._

_Once more, guns were drawn on him, voices bellowed commands that he did not understand. Out of the darkness, a man came running down a set of metal stairs from a gallery at the other end of the room. The people all around parted on all sides to let him through._

_The soldier who’d spoken English to Billy earlier explained something to the man before him. The man looked past the soldier at Billy, interest clearly piqued._

_“Who are you?” the man said. Billy had no doubt that this was the man in charge._

_“My name is Billy Hargrove,” he said softly. “I’m looking for a way back to Hawkins – _this _world’s Hawkins. I think we might be able to help each other.”_

_The man in charge laughed humourlessly. “And how could you _possibly _help me?”_

_Billy gave him a cocky smile. “Well, I can help you travel through that place without too much trouble,” he said. “I also know a bit about the Gate, and about the people that stopped your first attempt at infiltrating Hawkins.”_

_The man’s face kept a carefully schooled expression. _

_“Is that _it?_” he asked, his tone dubious._

_“No,” Billy said softly, his words very much not his own. “Most importantly, I know what it is that Steve Harrington knows. And I know how to make him talk.”_

-:-

**September 1985, Russia**

“I made a deal with them,” Billy explained. “I offered to help them. Turns out that the Russians and that _thing _want a lot of the same things. They want to get to Hawkins. _It _wants to get to Hawkins. And, honestly, I don’t know about you, but _I_ want to get to Hawkins.”

Steve made a soft noise at the back of his throat that sounded slightly sceptical. Billy felt a sense of frustration snap in him.

“Oh, for _fuck’s sake, _Harrington, swallow your fucking _pride,_” Billy snapped with an eyeroll. “You can take your stupid noble attitude and choose to die on this hill if you _really want, _but they _will _kill you. They’ll get everything they want out of you, just like they did yesterday, just like they did earlier.”

-:-

_“How can she open Gates?” Ozerov said._

_Billy saw Steve look at him, fear and confusion in his eyes. Some part of Billy, some part of the _Other Guy _realised that he didn’t _want _Steve to tell the Russians the details of the girl. It was a risk to open her up to other humans. But Billy – the _Other Guy – _needed to know what Steve knew. _

_“I don’t… I don’t know…” Steve stammered breathlessly._

_Billy felt a strange, overwhelming sense of relief at Steve’s denial, but it was short-lived, dying with Ozerov’s next words._

_“Very well, then. If you wish to do it that way…”_

-:-

“_Or,_” Billy continued, “you could decide _not _to be a martyr, and help these Commie bastards long enough to get home. It would save you a _lot _of pain.”

Steve met Billy’s anger with his own. “Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can _do _that,” he snapped. “My friends have gone through too much for me to just… _roll over_ and become the Soviets’ _pet._ I’m not going to turn on them like that.”

“Steve, for _fuck’s sake…_ you wouldn’t be _turning _on them. You’d be _surviving. _They already think you’re dead. They _left _you to go through all this shit _alone._ They don’t deserve your loyalty.”

-:-

_“Wait – no-”_

_Billy’s heart clenched at Steve’s desperate protests. The _Other Guy _wouldn’t let him move – wouldn’t let him keep anything other than the impassive, stony expression as he stood there watching, but _Billy _wanted to do something. His heart felt like it was cracking as he watched Steve beg for his freedom as the two soldiers tied him down onto that bench._

-:-

“You don’t know anything about it!” Steve snapped. “I _told _them to leave me. I thought I _was _going to die. I went through that Gate as a last resort, and if they _knew-_”

“You really _believe _that, don’t you?” Billy said, the heat gone from his voice. “You believe they’d come for you. You believe they’d _help _you.”

-:-

_“Please – wait – I don’t know-”_

_“I asked you to tell me the truth, Butterscotch,” Ozerov said._

_“Please…” Steve’s head snapped towards Billy. “Billy! Please – tell them I don’t know – tell them I don’t know!”_

_The _Other Guy _stayed silent. Billy’s heart felt like it was cracking. _He’d _done this. He’d put Steve in this position – no longer a prisoner, now directly in the crosshairs. There was nothing he could do – his body wouldn’t obey him. The _Other Guy _was too desperate for information._

_He watched as the Russian soldiers filled up the cup of water – it was little more than a pint glass…_

_“How can she open Gates?” Ozerov asked one more time._

_The water was right above Steve’s head, obscured by that cloth –_

_“NO! Wait! She has powers!”_

-:-

Steve buried his hands in his hair, pulling close to the scalp.

“I _have _to,” he breathed, so quietly Billy almost missed it. “I screwed up. I can’t screw up anymore. I have to _fix _it.”

Billy let out a long exhale, pressing himself back against the wall, tilting his head up.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one,” he sighed. “But we can’t fix it if we’re dead.”

Steve sighed. He leant his head back. Billy looked at him, surprised to see him fighting back tears.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Billy said at last, hoping to keep his tone neutral. “You did what you had to do.”

Steve breathed out, not looking at Billy.

“I guess,” he said. “Shit happens and you deal with it, huh?”

Billy shrugged. “Maybe,” he muttered. “But I prefer not letting shit happen.”

-:-

_Ozerov’s excitement at the discovery of a weaponizable girl was only partially marred by his anger at Billy._

_“You knew,” Ozerov said, glaring at him. “You knew all this about the girl.”_

_Billy felt the _Other Guy’s _anger roar inside him. “Yeah.”_

_“You should not have kept this from us,” Ozerov snarled. “If we are to work together to find this girl, we cannot keep secrets.”_

_“Please… Please don’t hurt her…”_

_Steve’s pathetic begging for her life, as though the damage could be undone by such a simple request, interrupted them both, causing both Ozerov and Billy to look over at him._

_“Do not worry, Butterscotch,” Ozerov said softly. “I have no intention of hurting her. She is far too valuable to kill.”_

_Billy’s head snapped up. This was what he’d been afraid of – why he hadn’t told the Russians himself._

_“She can’t be left alive,” he said incredulously._

_Ozerov turned back to Billy, with that infuriating, arrogant smirk still in place. _

_“Why not?” he asked. “She is useful. You Americans have succeeded in creating a… superpower?”_

_“Colonel Ozerov…” Steve cut in warningly. “Don’t…”_

_Billy ignored him. More importantly, so did Ozerov. So _arrogant…

_“She’s dangerous,” Billy said. “We find her, and we kill her.”_

_Ozerov laughed arrogantly. “Why do we have to kill her?” he chuckled. “Yes, she is dangerous, but she is dangerous to them, also. Butterscotch will help us find her, and he will help us control her.”_

_This man was a fool. A dangerous fool who could not be allowed to put him in danger._

_“You can’t control her,” Billy growled, stepping towards Ozerov. “You can’t control him, either. I _tried_. Now, he isn’t a threat, but her… you can’t imagine what she could do.”_

_Ozerov laughed._

_“Ozerov, I’m telling you, don’t-” Steve started, but was sent doubling over by one of the soldiers punching him in the stomach._

_“There is more than one way to control a man,” Ozerov said, and the _arrogance _grated on Billy’s eardrums. This man was dangerous, reckless. He had no idea what he was messing with._

_“We can use her,” Ozerov said. “She can help us take down the government that left you to die. And maybe we can work out what makes her so special. Maybe we can try to recreate it – make others of our own-”_

_It was too much. Billy grabbed Ozerov by the throat, pushing him against the wall, holding him in the air._

_“Stop!”_

_“Dostatochno!”_

_“Otpusti yego!”_

_“_ _My tebya ub'yem!”_

_Billy glanced sideways at the soldiers. They both had their guns drawn. The bullets would kill him if they hit him – this body would only survive so much. But _Ozerov… _if he had control of Ozerov, then he had control of the Russian base. He could order the extermination of the girl if he wanted. Ozerov had power. Power that, in _his _hands, could be unstoppable. _

_Ozerov’s lips were still moving, finally managing to choke out a single command._

_“Ubey yego!” Ozerov gasped._

_The guns cocked – Steve tried to pull himself back out of the way – _

_“Sorry, Colonel,” he hissed._

_Billy was of no use to him now._

-:-

Steve ran a hand over his face. “The Mind Flayer’s in control of Ozerov,” he summarised.

Billy tilted his head in acquiescence. “Yep,” he said. “The Mind Flayer’s in control of the Russians.”

Steve let out a defeated groan, slumping down the wall. Billy looked over at him.

“We can _stop _it, though,” Billy said.

Steve looked up at him curiously.

“We can pretend to be their little _pets,_” Billy explained. “Do what they ask. Work out what they’re doing. And then… we screw it up.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t let shit happen, huh?”

“We don’t let shit happen,” Billy repeated, offering Steve his hand for him to take. “We might even be able to get home.”

Steve took his hand, pushing himself into a slightly more respectable sitting position. Billy felt a strangely warm feeling wash over him, and he smiled at Steve –

_Harrington! Jesus, how long had he been doing that? –_

_No._

_His name was Steve._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fun fact – I had every intention of referring to Steve as Harrington for this entire chapter, given that it’s Billy’s POV. BUT I kept forgetting and writing his name as Steve, and then realised that it was actually quite a fitting quirk of post-flayed!Billy. So… character development…?
> 
> Also, I know this was largely revisiting old scenes from a different angle, but I really wanted to explore flayed!Billy’s character and his different motivations and how they changed, because I planned all of these changes of Billy while I was writing part 2, and had every intention of basically writing this chapter after the big reveal to properly look into it. Definitely the hardest part was working out exactly what it would feel like to be under the control of a consciousness that wasn’t his – particularly when that level of control varies.
> 
> Hope this answered some of your many, MANY questions about ‘wtf was flayed!Billy’s angle there?’


	26. Part 3 Chapter 5: Stupidity Gets Lost In Translation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Depression. This chapter gets dark and starts exploring some really toxic aspects of depression. It's not pretty, it's not forgiving, and it's not resolved yet, so please proceed with caution.

By the time Steve opened his eyes, Billy had broken his thumbnail.

He hadn’t been entirely aware of drifting off, but a hiss of pain that hadn’t come from him brought him jolting back to reality. His eyes snapped open to Billy gasping, clutching his hand.

“What happened?” Steve asked, scrambling to his feet.

“I was-” Billy hissed in a sharp intake of breath, not looking at Steve. “Doesn’t matter…”

Steve raised an eyebrow, taking in Billy turning his back and holding his right hand in his left. A trickle of red was dripping down his fist.

“Is that _blood?_” Steve asked, incredulous.

Billy completely ignored him, turning his head up to the ceiling, his face screwed up in concentration.

“Here,” Steve said, stretching out his hand towards Billy. “Let me see.”

Billy gave him a guarded look before offering out his right hand. Steve took it, looking down at the tip of Billy’s bloody thumb. He grabbed the corner of the shirt sleeve and started to wipe away the blood.

“Sure they’re okay with you ruining that uniform?” Billy breathed in an attempt at humour.

Steve shrugged, his downturned face hiding a smile. “What are they going to do, _wash _it for me?”

Steve glanced up at Billy, giving him a glimpse of his smile before turning back to Billy’s thumb. His facial expression changed from one of amusement to a wince as he saw what had happened.

The thumbnail had cracked down the centre, straight through the nail and down to the bed. Blood was coming up through the crack, spilling over his thumb and down his hand. Steve couldn’t hold it against Billy for his pained gasps, his ragged breathing and the deep lines of agony etching themselves around his eyes. Steve was vividly reminded of his own experience with maimed fingernails.

“_Jesus, _Billy, what _happened?_”

Billy still wasn’t meeting his eyes. “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered.

“Uh – yeah, it _does-_”

“No, Steve, it _doesn’t_,” Billy insisted. “It was… it was stupid.”

Steve shot Billy an unimpressed look, which was met by an equally determined defensive look. A silent battle of wills occurred in that long stare, neither one of them willing to back down.

Billy cracked first, a hiss of pain coming with a slight tremor of his hand that sent a small trickle of blood sideways, pulling ever so slightly at the nail. Steve looked away just long enough to grab the corner of his sleeve again and wrap it around Billy’s thumb, pressing tightly down on the injury. Billy let out a fresh noise of annoyance before Steve looked back up at Billy’s face with that same unimpressed expression, patiently waiting until Billy’s grimace smoothed out into a less agonized, but defeated, look.

“I was trying to scratch something into the wall,” Billy admitted quietly.

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “With your _fingernail?_”

“_No,_ Steve, with my _asshole_.”

Steve frowned at Billy, concerned. “What was so important it needed scratching into the _wall?_”

“It _really _doesn’t matter,” Billy huffed, looking anywhere in the room but at Steve.

“It mattered enough to you to break your own _fingernail_, Billy.”

Billy glared at Steve, but was met with an equally annoyed glare. He held his gaze for a second before yielding, turning around to look at the door with a sigh.

“I was trying to…” Billy swallowed, his eyes falling to the floor, embarrassment colouring his cheeks. “I was trying to keep count of the days.”

His voice dropped, and he didn’t look at Steve. He could feel Steve watching him, staring at what little of Billy’s face he could see.

“_What?_” Steve breathed at last.

“It’s stupid, I know,” Billy sighed, turning to look at the other side of the cell. “But… I don’t know how long we were… we were in the Other Way Up-”

“Upside Down,” Steve corrected softly.

“_Whatever,_” Billy snapped. “The point is I don’t know how long we spent there. I don’t know how long _I _spent there after the Russians got _you_. It could have been weeks, months, _years_ even… And we wouldn’t _know_. So I… I wanted to start keeping track of how long we’d spent here. Just so… So we’d have _some _idea.”

He chanced a glance at Steve out of the corner of his eye. Steve wasn’t looking at Billy, head still turned down at Billy’s hand clasped in both his own. He was fully prepared to have imagined the slight tightening of Steve’s grip, something that felt almost reassuring.

“I get it, Billy,” Steve finally said quietly. There was _far _too much understanding and sympathy in his voice for Billy’s liking. “But you don’t need to _maim _yourself. This isn’t the movies; shit like that _hurts. _Believe me, I know.”

Steve rubbed the middle and fourth finger of his left hand over Billy’s wrist, the gentle touch feeling like a brand on Billy’s skin. Billy’s eyes shot down to his fingers, seeing the strange, scarred stubs that had once been where Steve’s fingernails were. He thought he could see the beginnings of new nails finally growing; rough, torn edges barely poking out of the nail bed.

“I’m sorry,” Billy breathed.

Steve looked up at him, eyes shining with incredulous amusement. “What the hell are you apologising to _me _for?”

Billy shrugged. “I don’t…”

He trailed off at Steve’s unimpressed look, but there was a glint of affection in his eyes this time. Billy tried to give him an equally annoyed look but was pretty sure he’d failed when Steve’s expression started to crack into one of barely suppressed amusement. Left with little other option, Billy pulled his thumb out of Steve’s sleeve before turning around and walking towards the wall. He ran his thumb down the wall, leaving a small line of blood as a mark that absorbed itself into the concrete. The movement sent ripples of pain through his finger, which he tried to suppress behind an attempt at his trademark grin as he turned back to Steve.

“There you go,” he said. “I made a mark.”

Steve’s amused lack of awe was expressed in a grin and a dubious eyebrow rising towards his hairline.

“Feel _better?_” Steve asked.

Billy’s grin broke as a fresh wave of pain coursed through his thumb. He let out a small hiss as he tried to breathe through it. Steve didn’t bother asking as he took Billy’s hand in his own again and wrapped the corner of his sleeve back around it.

“_God_, Hargrove,” he sighed exasperatedly, with a barely concealed undertone of affection. “I thought _I _was meant to be the idiot.”

-:-

Dustin opted to bike to school that morning.

He was painfully aware that this wasn’t going to be a good day. He’d gone back to Weathertop after skipping Chemistry, spending most of the afternoon watching the sun sinking lower in the sky while he waited for Suzie to get home from school. Unfortunately, before that happened, the radio had exploded with various calls from Mike, Lucas and Will asking where he was. He hadn’t answered any of them, turning the radio off until his watch had told him it was five o’clock.

It had been surprisingly peaceful, the early fall breeze gently wafting the long grass around him. In a different time, he would have imagined that he would have been _happy _sat there, watching the sun start to set over Hawkins. Instead, he’d just felt numb, relishing in not having to listen to Mike or Lucas lamenting whatever problems they thought they had that day.

Still, he knew Mike, Lucas and Will well enough to know that they weren’t going to leave it alone. And he was proven right as soon as he went to his locker that morning.

“Hey,” Lucas pushed his locker door fully open, his eyes flashing dangerously. “What the _hell_, man?”

Dustin buried his face further into his locker, extracting his calculus book from the back. His locker was a mess, but he didn’t care. He rolled his eyes at Lucas’ comment before finally straightening up to look at them.

“Dude, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but-”

“Sorry, you _don’t?_” Dustin snapped incredulously, cutting off Lucas. “Let’s _see…_ It could have something to do with your _ex-girlfriends _risking everything we’ve spent the last few years trying to stop, and all _I _ever hear from you guys is how sad you are that it all ended.”

“Dustin, I get why you’re mad,” Will cut in. “But it’s… It’s not just been since we saw Max and El. We barely saw you over the summer. You disappeared down into that Russian base, and then you disappeared afterwards. We wanted to help you, but you weren’t talking to us. And now school’s started, and you’re angry, you’re being… _really _nasty about Max every chance you get, you’re _skipping class…_ It’s not _you, _Dustin.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “We’re worried about you, man.”

“We want to _help _you,” Lucas said. “But last night, after school… we were calling you on every channel, but you weren’t answering. We can’t help you if you don’t _let _us.”

“Well, there you have it,” Dustin said, tilting his head slightly. “Don’t _help _me.”

He turned to leave. His anger was mounting. None of them _understood._ None of them had made any _effort _to understand. He didn’t need their help, and he didn’t _want_ them to try. He didn’t want them to try and offer empty words of reassurance to him. He didn’t want to find himself dragged back into their relationship drama just to sit and listen to them mope over two girls Dustin could no longer stand the sight of.

“Dustin!”

Will’s voice tore at the edge of his awareness. A soft hand on his arm stopped him from taking another step. He turned around to face him. Mike and Lucas were a couple of feet away, watching them, sympathy in their eyes, but for once in their lives choosing _not _to fill every waking second with the sound of their own voices.

“I’m not going to pretend that I knew what Steve was to you,” Will said softly. “I can guess, but… Look, I can see how hard you’re taking this. But there are people who can help – who _want _to help. Like… not just _us. _Not just your friends. There are professionals. I _know _it sounds like bullshit, but after everything that happened the last couple of years… I _know._ Me, Mom, Jonathan… we _all _went and saw shrinks last year. And it _helped_. Just… I know you can’t do this on your own. It’s not healthy. So just… try asking for help.”

Dustin forced a smile at Will.

“Thanks, Byers,” he said. “But I’ve got all the help I need.”

He turned away from Will and started to walk to class. He determinedly spent the rest of the day trying not to think about how Will’s face had fallen at his words.

-:-

“So what _exactly_ are we supposed to be doing?” Billy asked Steve quietly.

They were in the workshop. Billy’s new dark uniform sat around his shoulders uncomfortably as he and Steve crouched over the instructions. Steve was holding up a page, squinting at it.

“Just…” Steve breathed. “Try to look busy.”

“Busy doing _what?_”

Steve sighed, holding up the instructions in front of them before turning to Billy.

“We’re meant to be building _this,_” Steve explained in a whisper. “I don’t know _how _we’re meant to be building this, because all the instructions are in Russian, _but _someone was nice enough to write down the alphabet for me.”

“Who’s this _someone?_” Billy whispered back. “They can help us, can’t they?”

“No,” Steve breathed, looking down at the floor. “No, they were… the Russians shot him.”

Billy saw Steve’s eyes flick to something over Billy’s shoulder. He threw a quick glance behind him to catch a glimpse of a large blood stain splattered over the wall.

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve said softly in a tone that didn’t convince Billy at all. “We just need to work out what it says. There are some words that are basically the same in Russian as in English. And then there are little diagrams that are pretty helpful.”

Billy nodded slightly. “And what exactly _is_ this thing that we’re building?”

Steve’s eyes widened as he looked down at the instructions again. “Good question,” he said softly. “I… don’t really know, but I _think _it’s probably some part of those machines that they’re using to open the Gate.”

“They’ve already _opened _the Gate, Steve.”

“Well, why don’t you go and ask the Russians what we’re doing, then?”

Billy rolled his eyes before looking back at the blueprints. His eyes found the scribbles Steve had been making all over them in pencil.

“You’ve been translating,” he observed.

Steve nodded. “Sort of,” he said. “Putting the words into an alphabet I can read.”

Billy smirked at him. “You can _read?_” he muttered teasingly.

Steve didn’t bother to answer, instead lightly elbowing him in the side. Billy glanced sideways at him, catching that same barely concealed smile on Steve’s face before they both looked back down at the instructions.

Billy looked over at one of the areas Steve had managed to mostly translate.

“Why have you written _‘wire’_ here?” he said, pointing above a word Steve had circled.

Steve looked at it, deciphering his messy scrawl.

“Because I’m pretty sure that word means _‘wire’_,” he explained. “There are a few words like that.”

Billy looked over the paper. There were a few other words circled here and there with translations written above them. He saw the word _‘wrench’_ written above a few, as well as several instances of a word that Steve had circled but not actually written a translation down for.

“Steve, what does the word _‘vint’ _mean?”

“Screw,” Steve said without any hint of hesitation.

Billy looked up at him, impressed.

“It kept coming up,” Steve said. “It came up in one of the diagrams I found next to a picture of a screw. It kept coming up, so I just started circling it rather than writing it down every time.”

Billy smiled at him, that same impressed expression shining through. “Nice one, Harrington,” he said, putting a hand on Steve’s back. “You’re not as stupid as you look.”

A hint of a flush crept up Steve’s cheeks as he looked back down at the plans. “Yeah, but it takes me _ages _to get it into something I can kind of read. I can’t _deal _with these weird little letters.”

“Okay,” Billy said, picking up the pencil. “Let me try.”

Steve shrugged, handing the blueprints over to Billy with a shrug, letting him start to scribble over the rest of the passage. Steve rifled through the pages to find the one where he’d scribbled the Cyrillic alphabet, keeping it on-hand for Billy to use.

Billy needed to glance at it a certain amount at the start, but it didn’t take long before he started to pick up and remember the strange characters. It became easier as he went along, translating the characters into something Steve could vaguely read.

Steve, however, was reading the words as Billy translated them, occasionally stopping as he recognised one.

“_There!_” Steve gasped, pointing to another word he recognised. “Can I get the pencil?”

Billy passed it over without looking at him, watching as Steve circled the word _‘__moshchnost’_.

“That’s come up a few times,” he explained, rifling back through the pages. “I think it’s got something to do with a power supply.”

Billy frowned at him. “What makes you say that?”

Steve finally found a diagram, where a line that was clearly meant to be a cable ended with an arrow pointing down to a small lightning symbol, with the word _‘moshchnost’_ scrawled underneath. There were other similar diagrams that Steve had found, with the word circled. Each one Billy saw did seem to be leading him towards the same conclusion Steve had come to.

“Fair enough,” Billy shrugged, taking the pencil back and bringing the page he’d been working on back to the top.

They worked like that for a little while. Billy proved far faster at putting the words into an alphabet they could both read, while Steve would occasionally stop him to circle a word he’d seen before and scribble a guessed definition above it.

About twenty minutes later, Billy stopped. He looked up at the machine in front of them, taking it in.

“Steve,” he said softly. “I think this is meant to be some kind of electromagnet.”

Steve looked up at the large coil in front of him, frowning.

“Isn’t that one of those magnets you can turn on and off?”

Billy smirked over at him. “You remembered that from physics?” he asked disbelievingly.

“_No,_” Steve said defensively. “I remember Dustin going on and on about it for about a week after he signed up for camp.”

Billy tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement.

“Does knowing that we’re building an electromagnet thing _help _us somehow?” Steve asked.

Billy shrugged slightly. “Well,” he said. “I know how to build an electromagnet.”

Steve raised his eyebrows at him, a slight smile spreading across his face. “Awesome,” he muttered.

Billy didn’t let himself smile just then, however. “This one seems to be a bit more complicated than Max’s seventh grade science project, though,” he pointed out. “It’s still worth trying to translate the rest of those instructions, but at least we’re not feeling blindly in the dark anymore.”

Billy picked up a hammer from the floor by his foot.

“I’ve translated that page,” he said, straightening up. “You go through, see if you can work out what any more of those words mean.”

Steve frowned at him. “What are _you _going to do? There’s still _loads_ of other pages to translate.”

Billy shrugged. “I’m going to improvise.”

-:-

Hopper was slightly caught on the back foot as Joyce knocked on the door at eight thirty in the morning, five minutes after Hopper himself had made it in.

“Uh – Hop,” she said hesitantly. “The Mayor is here to see you.”

_Well, that wasn’t his usual MO._

He gave Joyce what he hopes was a reassuring smile, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. He could swear that every time he and Paul Harrington shared a space, let alone a conversation, his blood pressure would go through the roof.

“Thanks, Joyce,” he said, leaving her to bow out while Harrington breezed past her into Hopper’s office.

“Chief Hopper,” Harrington said formally, helping himself to the seat in front of Hopper’s desk without an invitation. Hopper hastily took a swig of coffee, trying not to allow the blistering heat burning the inside of his mouth to show on his face. Harrington simply raised an eyebrow at Hopper’s antics, his steely grey gaze holding Hopper’s own, showing Hopper that Harrington found him nothing more than woefully inadequate.

It _really _wasn’t hard to see why Steve Harrington had had quite such a difficult relationship with his father.

“Uh – can I get you-” Hopper gestured towards the coffee cup.

Harrington’s gaze broke and he started to pull a file out of his briefcase.

“No thanks, I can’t stay long,” Harrington said dismissively. “I was going through your report last night and I noticed that there hasn’t been any update on Winnie Kline’s assault last month.”

Hopper blinked in surprise at Harrington’s objection.

“Well, the guy was wearing a mask,” Hopper explained. “He didn’t actually cause any physical harm to her, he just threw a bucket of blood over her. It’s an isolated incident, we don’t have any CCTV footage of the guy, and the suspect list covers most of this town.”

“Be that as it may, I want this person found,” Harrington said icily. “Do what you have to do to make it happen.”

“With all due respect,” Hopper said, matching Harrington’s tone. “There’s not much else we _can _do. The trail was cold before my department ever got the call.”

Harrington looked at him with that same glare designed to make Hopper feel inadequate. “Be that as it may, I _don’t _like the idea of someone getting away with throwing a bucket of blood over someone on their doorstep.”

Hopper sighed. “It was an isolated incident,” he tried to explain. “It happened last month to one of the most hated people in Hawkins. I honestly don’t think it’s going to happen again. _Particularly _now that you’re in office.”

A less astute man than Paul Harrington might have interpreted that as a compliment, a vague attempt at flattery, but Harrington picked up on the subtle subtext underneath, the ever-so-slight dig.

“What’s _that _supposed to mean?” he asked, and if Hopper had thought his tone was cold before, it was positively arctic now.

Still, Hopper was never one to back down from a fight.

“Let’s not pretend that your little campaign didn’t have anything to do with this,” Hopper explained, leaning back in his chair. “You spent weeks blaming Larry Kline for what happened at Starcourt. At a time when everyone was upset, you took the grief of everyone in this town and turned it into anger. You stirred up one hell of a shitstorm for your own personal gain, and frankly I think we got _lucky _that the most serious incident wasn’t something worse than a bucket of animal blood being thrown on Kline’s wife.”

Harrington glared at Hopper, the embers of anger that seemed to permanently sit just below the surface starting to come to life.

“It’s funny that you think that somehow this is _my _fault,” Harrington said, no trace of any humour on his face. “The anger at Starcourt was well-placed. _I _had nothing to do with what happened there. If the people are angry, I can hardly blame them, and it’s _astonishing _that you’ve somehow turned it around as though it’s _my _fault, when the reality is that I’m simply trying to clean up the mess here – a mess that _you _just left when you left my son to die. I didn’t _make _this mess. It’s not my fault that things got as out of control as they did.”

Hopper closed his eyes for a fraction longer than a standard blink. Flashes of memories that Harrington could not possibly know shot across his mind. _Snapshots of that kid standing by the machine, tears in his eyes as he told Hopper to go… Glancing briefly at the kid in blue from the observation deck before turning to Joyce… Standing there, looking through the cracked glass after the machine was destroyed, watching the girl run down, screaming that name into the void…_

“You’re right,” Hopper said, his voice catching slightly in his throat. “It _wasn’t _your fault that things got as far as they did.”

Harrington leant back in his chair, mimicking Hopper’s pose, the triumphant air suiting him far better than it had ever suited Hopper.

“You just took it a whole lot further,” Hopper finished.

The triumphant air vanished as something in Harrington’s eyes hardened. He looked sideways, putting the file back into his briefcase before standing up.

“Find the person who did it, Chief Hopper,” Harrington said without a backward glance as he walked out of the room. “I don’t want to have to tell you again.”

-:-

October arrived at Hawkins amidst a storm that didn’t seem to know it was meant to pass, let alone how to do so.

Rain lashed at the windows of Hawkins High, driving those that would normally eat lunch outside or in their cars towards the cafeteria. The only people to be found outside during the first week of October were the students who had developed a premature addiction to cigarettes that couldn’t quite last the full six or so hours they’d spend in school.

Max’s new status as a pariah – _loner _– did have its disadvantages, however. Her mom couldn’t afford to drive her to school every day, and she _certainly _wasn’t about to ask Jonathan or Nancy for a lift. Even if they said yes – an extremely unlikely outcome – she didn’t particularly want to be sharing a car with Lucas – or worse, Dustin.

Things had not improved between them. Any hope she may have harboured that Dustin would get over his anger at her was sorely mistaken. Whatever he was going through – and _everyone _could tell he was going through something – he’d evidently decided to make Max a scapegoat.

Max suspected that she knew why. It was a feeling she knew all too well. A feeling that _she’d _been struggling with as her life had collapsed around her ears over the course of a few weeks.

For the most part, Dustin ignored Max’s entire existence. In fact, for the most part, he ignored _most _people’s existences. He spent his days following Mike, Lucas and Will around, but he was distant, _elsewhere_. He kept his head down in classes, watching – or rather, _not _watching – rather than participating as Max remembered him doing.

The only times Max heard him talk nowadays was when the opportunity presented itself for him to make a dig at Max within her earshot.

One such opportunity presented itself in one of those early October afternoons, during their lunch break. Max wasn’t entirely sure quite _what _she’d done to catch the attention of James Dante, but he came over to her as she was packing her books away before going to the cafeteria, but her locker door suddenly slammed open to reveal James standing there, Troy Walsh shadowing him.

“Hey, Max,” he said, an unbearably cocky smile on his face as he looked at her. “I… I heard you and Sinclair broke up over the summer.”

“Wow,” she snapped. “Such an _original _opening gambit. I haven’t heard _anyone _talking about it at all.”

A flash of annoyance shot across James’ face before he rallied, the same smug grin still on his face.

“Well, with Sinclair out of the picture, and now that you’ve had some time to get over him, I bet you’re on the lookout for a _real _man to replace him.”

Max finally turned to face him. “A _real _man?” she said disbelievingly. Her eyes flicked down towards his groin before looking back up at his face. “I don’t think so.”

She didn’t bother looking back at him, turning to walk away.

“Told you,” Troy said very audibly. “She’s a fucking dyke.”

Max gave a small huff. Normally, she’d have been content to raise a middle finger at them and walk away, but a very familiar voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Just leave her alone,” Lucas’ voice cut through the hall.

She slowed her pace, her stride breaking as she glanced at him. He was standing a little behind Troy and James with Dustin, Mike and Will. He met her eyes for a second, his expression unreadable, before he turned back towards Troy and James.

“What are you going to do, _Midnight?_” Troy hissed, squaring up to Lucas.

Lucas’ tolerance for those kinds of slurs had clearly worn thin, because he started squaring back up to Troy. A year ago, Troy would have dominated, but now Lucas matched him, even gaining a couple of inches on him, but where Lucas had never been in a one-on-one fight, he was painfully aware of the fact that Troy gave Billy a run for his money in psychopathic behaviour.

So Max stepped in – in the only way she knew how.

“I don’t _need _you fighting my battles for me, Lucas,” she hissed at him, turning around and squaring up to him.

Lucas gave her that same unreadable expression before taking a step back towards the others. Troy gave an infuriating, triumphant smirk before turning back to James. Max glared at the pair, before shooting a look over at the Party as she turned away.

“I _told _you, Lucas,” Dustin’s voice cut through the noise as the chatter in the hallway resumed. “She’s an ungrateful, selfish bitch. So unless you’re going to _do _anything about it, just stop pining over her, it’s _pathetic._”

Perhaps if she _hadn’t _had to deal with James Dante and Troy Walsh, she might have ignored it. Perhaps if she _hadn’t _just stepped in to stop the fight between Troy and Lucas that was threatening to break out, she might have had enough in her to turn the other cheek like she always did. Perhaps if she’d heard any other word from Dustin over the last two weeks that hadn’t been an insult to her, she might have found it in herself to walk away.

As it was, though, this drew a reaction out of her that she couldn’t stop.

“You know, Dustin,” she said coldly, stopping in her tracks with her back to them. “If you’ve got something to say to me, just _say it._”

She turned around to see Dustin with both his eyebrows raised incredulously at her. He recovered quickly, though, stepping away from the Party to face off against her.

“Fine,” Dustin said. “You _really _want to know what I think?”

Max tilted her head slightly, smiling cockily at him. “Yeah, Dustin, let’s hear it.”

They both glanced around as the other occupants of the hallway stopped talking to watch. A hush fell over them as they both realised that they would need to choose their words extremely carefully.

“You asked us to put our lives on the line to save Billy,” Dustin said. “And we did. We did _everything _we could. But he’s now _gone. _He’s gone, and he’s _not _coming back. You had _no right _to do what you did.”

“_No right?_” Max echoed. “No fucking – _No, _Dustin. You have _no idea_ what it’s been like for me after… after all that. Neil tried to _attack_ me. He left my mom. My mom’s been a fucking mess ever since. _Everything _went wrong after that. And so I’m _sorry _for trying to fix it.”

Dustin took a step towards her, dropping his voice so only she could hear his next words.

“We did what you _asked _us to do,” he breathed. “If things went wrong after that, that’s on you-”

Whatever words were about to leave his mouth were cut off as Max grabbed his shirt and slammed him into the lockers with strength she never knew she possessed. She held him there as rage coursed through her.

The people watching them started gathering into a crowd, with shouts egging them on. Phrases ranging from _“kick his ass, Max” _to _“it doesn’t count if she’s a dyke”_ soared over them. Max held him there for another second, contemplating everything – every insult he’d flung at her, every time she’d ever been called a lesbian, every glare, every instance of _‘selfish’_ muttered within her earshot – before finally deciding to hurt him in a way that she _knew_ would break him more completely than physical force ever would. She pressed herself closer to him, her lips right by his ear.

“_I’m _the reason Billy’s still alive,” she breathed so quietly that only he could hear her. “You’re the reason Steve _isn’t._”

She let him go, pushing her way through the crowd of people. She didn’t stop to look back to see Dustin’s eyes widen, see him stagger away from the lockers. She didn’t look back to watch him push away Lucas, Will and Mike to stagger down the corridor and out into the rain.

She tried not to think about the gnawing feeling in her stomach when Dustin didn’t come into school the next day.

-:-

Chemistry the following day was… _interesting_.

Lucas, Mike and Will seemed to have collectively decided not to try and talk to Max in Dustin’s absence. There was the occasional muttering amongst them, Lucas occasionally glancing back at her, but otherwise, nothing.

The good news about that lesson was that they were doing an experiment, which meant that conversations were not greeted with a cold glare and a whip-like crack of their names to shut it down, but rather general indifference, Kaminsky looking up occasionally to make sure nobody was blowing themselves up.

El and Max were working together, generally trying their hardest to ignore Lucas and Mike’s occasional glances over to them. Fortunately, Will _also _seemed to be tired of dragging their attention away from them and very audibly snapped at them to focus.

El looked over at them before turning back to Max.

“What… _happened?_” she asked hesitantly. “Yesterday… with Dustin?”

Max sighed. “We had a fight,” she explained.

“A _fight?_”

Max looked over at her alarmed expression, and she remembered that El’s idea of a fight generally involved a lot more violence than what Max was referring to.

“Not like _that,_” Max corrected. “It didn’t get physical or anything-”

_She remembered shoving Dustin up against the lockers –_

“– I mean, it _kind _of did, but nobody got _hurt-_”

_She remembered the words she’d hissed in Dustin’s ear that still made her stomach twist uncomfortably –_

“Nobody got hurt like _that_,” she finished.

El looked confused.

“…Why?” she eventually asked.

Max sighed, running a hand over her face. “It’s… _complicated,_” she said, as though El didn’t know. “He doesn’t _want _to understand. He… I _think _he just wants to be angry.”

El looked even more confused.

“He’s upset about what happened,” Max tried to explain. “He’s looking for someone to take it out on. I’m just not taking his shit anymore.”

El paused, looking over at Max.

“We should apologise,” El suggested.

“_What?_”

Max wheeled around, looking at El disbelievingly. Anger burnt bright in her eyes.

“We hurt our friend,” El explained simply. “We should apologise.”

“El, I’m _not _sorry for what we did,” Max snapped. “I’m not going to _apologise _to him for it.”

“Not for that,” El explained again, like it was the simplest thing in the world. “But we hurt him. He’s hurting. He’s our friend. We should talk to him.”

Max shook her head. “He’s not going to want to talk to us,” she pointed out.

El looked at her again, that same fiery determination that Max had seen in her whenever she was about to open a Gate. That same determination she’d seen in her when she’d suggested opening a Gate to save Billy at Starcourt. The same determination Max had seen in her the first time they’d ever met, when she’d announced that she could go to Hawkins Lab and close the Gate almost a year earlier.

“I want to try,” El said. “I want to make things right.”

-:-

Luck was on their side that evening. Hopper was stuck at work, leaving El and Max to find their own way home.

Actually, that wasn’t _quite _how he’d put it that morning. His exact words were _“could you get Jonathan to give you a lift back to Joyce’s,” _but, to use El’s current word of the day, courtesy of Max, _“semantics.”_

They rode Max’s bike to Dustin’s house. The storm _still _hadn’t shown any sign of stopping, rain soaking them to the skin in spite of their raincoats. They pulled up the bike in the driveway and knocked on the door.

The door swung open to reveal Claudia Henderson, looking down at them, confused.

“Can I help you girls?” she asked, extremely confused by the arrival of two sodden teenagers on her front porch, a bike propped up on the fence.

Max tried for a smile. “Uh – yeah – we’re… we’re looking for Dustin,” she explained. “We wanted to talk to him.”

Understanding smoothed over Claudia’s face. “Oh, girls, I’m sorry, he’s not back from school yet, but you’re welcome to come in and wait.”

El and Max exchanged confused glances.

“He wasn’t… _at _school…” El said, turning back to Claudia.

Claudia’s face screwed up in confusion. “Well, he left this morning,” she said. “Has something _happened?_”

She looked worried, and Max instantly guessed what was on her mind.

“He’s probably okay,” she tried to reassure her. “We – we had a fight yesterday. He skipped today, so I just… I just wanted to apologise.”

Claudia looked, if anything, more alarmed by this. “My Dusty doesn’t skip school…” she said. “Maybe… Maybe I should call the police…”

Claudia turned and walked back into the house. El looked alarmed, turning towards Max.

“Should I…” El breathed. She’d made a conscious effort not to use her powers since Mike and the others had discovered them opening the Gate in the woods, but if Dustin was _missing…_

Fortunately, Max had a better idea.

“No,” she whispered. “I think I know where he might be.”

“Where?”

Max raised her eyebrows at El. “_Suzie._”

-:-

Max’s hunch was proven right by the bike lying discarded on the side of the hill.

“He’s got to be _insane _to come here when the weather’s like this,” Max breathed as they left the bike by Dustin’s and started to hike. “A big metal aerial on a hilltop in a _storm…_ He’s lucky he hasn’t been struck by lightning or anything.”

_Lucky_, however, was not the word either of them would have used to describe the sight that greeted them at the top of the hill, though.

Dustin had taken to packing the electrical equipment away in a plastic box to protect it from the elements. He was sat next to it, leaning against it, his back to El and Max as they approached. If the girls felt wet, it was _nothing _compared to how Dustin looked.

He’d evidently been there all day. Water had soaked him through to the skin. Steve’s old grey windbreaker was wrapped around him, but it had clearly been a long time since that had made any difference. Water matted down his hair. His usual cap was gone. Instead, he just sat there, dripping wet, hunched over, shivering.

“Dustin!” Max called.

Dustin scrambled to his feet, spinning around and facing Max. His confusion morphed into anger as he saw who it was underneath the yellow hood.

“_Shit – _what the hell are _you _doing here?” he snapped.

Max raised an eyebrow at him, before El cut in.

“We just… wanted to talk,” El said. “We wanted to say… sorry.”

Dustin looked at El with disbelieving shock. He looked between them both, looking sceptically at Max.

“What _exactly _are you sorry for?” he asked accusingly.

“We hurt you,” El said softly. “We’re sorry we hurt you. We just want to make things _right._”

Dustin looked at El for another second before turning away, shaking his head.

“You still don’t _get _it, do you?” he laughed humourlessly. “You _really _don’t get it-”

“No, Dustin, _you _don’t get it,” Max cut him off with a snap. “You’re not the _only _person who’s lost someone.”

“Except you didn’t _lose _Billy, did you?” Dustin snarled. “You put him in the Upside Down-”

“_And now I can’t bring him back!_” Max screamed, tears pouring down her face. “And ever since then, my whole _life _has gone to shit! Neil turned on _us,_ he started blaming _me_ for what happened, and then he leaves, and my mom… she’s _drinking _her way through this, only she’s not getting through it. She gets drunk enough to pass out on the couch each night and _I _have to wake her up every morning so she can get into work on time. So… so _sue _me for trying to fix it. I just thought… if I could get him back… then _maybe _things could go back to normal. _Maybe _Neil would come back. _Maybe _he wouldn’t be such an asshole. Or _maybe _my mom would realise how much better off she is without him. I would have done _anything _to bring Billy back. And I had a _chance. _So I took it. And I’m sorry you didn’t like it, but I’m _not _sorry for what we did.”

Dustin gave another humourless laugh.

“_‘You’re sorry I didn’t like it?’_” Dustin scoffed. “You _really _suck at apologies, you know that?”

“Screw _you, _Dustin!” Max screamed. “I came here to try and help you _understand. _But you don’t _want _to, do you? You just want someone to hate, because you can’t handle your own goddamn _fucking _guilt!”

Dustin stepped back like he’d been slapped. His expression fell into one of pure rage.

“_Excuse me?_” he snarled. “What the _fuck _is that supposed to mean?”

“You can’t handle the fact that _you _had a chance to go back and help Steve, but you _didn’t!_” Max screamed. _If Dustin wasn’t going to listen to her, then screw him. _“You could have saved him, you could have got him out of that place, but you _didn’t! _And instead of dealing with that, you’re just trying to direct all your anger onto me, like I don’t have _enough _on my plate, and – and you know what? I’m _not _going to be your little fucking scapegoat. You call me selfish every chance you get, but the truth is you haven’t even _bothered _to try and see this from my side. _You’re _so selfish you’re not even going to bother _trying _to understand, because that would just make you feel a whole lot worse, wouldn’t it? You can’t even _contemplate _the possibility that you might be in the wrong, because that just opens the fucking _floodgates._ So you’re busy looking for _anyone _else to blame because you can’t handle the fact that _you screwed up-_”

“And _neither can you!_” Dustin screamed back at her. His eyes were suspiciously red, but any tears he had were being masked by the rain still lashing down on the three of them. “You can’t handle the fact that the _reason _your life is such a shitshow right now is because of the decisions _you _made. So _don’t _come here demanding forgiveness for the shit that you pulled, because it’s not coming from me. _You _screwed up just as much as I did! _You _ruined your own life! _You _decided to shove Billy into the Upside Down, _you’re _the reason that Neil left your mom, that your mom’s drinking her way through everything, _you’re _the reason you’ve got no friends, _you’re _the reason Lucas dumped you-”

Max wasn’t aware of the fact that she’d hit Dustin until her knuckles started stinging. He staggered sideways, clutching his cheek. He regained his balance, his fingertips staying on his cheek before he started towards her.

She didn’t know if he was going to hit her. He wasn’t a violent person, but she’d never seen him look at anyone like that. So she swung her fist again, catching him on the nose.

“Stop it!” El screamed.

“_Screw you, Max!_” he yelled at her as he recovered.

“_It wasn’t my fault!_” Max screamed, tears pouring down her face. “I did what I had to!”

“Stop it!” El shouted again.

“You put _everyone _at risk when you asked El to open that Gate!” Dustin yelled.

“_I saved Billy’s life!_” Max defended. “It’s not on _me _to make you see that!”

“And _then _you put us all in danger again when you got El to open _other _Gates without telling us!”

“I just wanted to save my _brother!_” Max yelled again. “You’re a fucking _asshole, _Dustin!”

“And you’re no better than those fucking Russians-”

“_STOP IT!_”

An unseen force seemed to explode from El, blasting both Max and Dustin backwards off their feet, sending them sprawling into the wet grass.

“I said _stop it!_” El screamed at them, sounding close to tears. “We’re friends! We shouldn’t _fight!_”

Dustin rolled onto his side, pushing himself up to look at them both. He glared from one to the other, pure hate in his eyes.

“We’re not _friends_,” he growled, making it very clear he was talking to both of them.

Max glared at him, giving him one last filthy look before staggering to her feet and turning away.

“Come on, El,” she snarled. “We’re done here.”

She was done with Dustin. Some things were beyond repair.

-:-

Steve and Billy found themselves settling into a routine as the marks on the wall started to add up.

They hadn’t had any contact with Ozerov since the Mind Flayer had left Billy for him. The threat of it hung over both Steve and Billy as the pair felt unsettled by the sudden quiet, mundane routine that they had established. It felt like they were being lulled into a false sense of security while they were _waiting _for something to happen.

Their days would be spent deciphering the blueprints the Russians had given them, doing their best to follow them with their limited knowledge of Russian. Billy was better at reading the Cyrillic alphabet, while Steve had discovered that he had a better grasp on working out what the words meant. What Steve was particularly gratified to discover was that it wasn’t just words on a page – he’d started to catch the occasional spoken word and relate it back to a meaning.

Billy was a godsend when it came to actually _building _the machine. Having spent far too much time tinkering with his Camaro, he had a far better grasp of what he was doing with the instructions than Steve. Mechanical engineering came far more naturally to Billy than to Steve, who was far more inclined to take his BMW to a garage over a flat tyre than Billy, who had proudly related the story to Steve where he’d managed to fix a critical fault in his Camaro’s engine rather than bite the bullet and ask his dad for money to get a mechanic to look at it.

From everything Billy said, Steve had gotten the impression that he’d always cover up a problem and fix it quietly rather than ask for help.

All that said, Steve was starting to get him to open up to him. Steve had started to try and piece together the days before Billy had found himself trapped in the Upside Down – something he now knew was due to Max and the others, courtesy of Billy’s outburst right before Steve had realised that Billy had been under the control of the Mind Flayer.

“So what the hell was going on between you and Karen Wheeler?” Steve asked one evening when they were back in their cell, sat on the floor. “No bullshit, no macho crap, just the truth.”

Billy paused for a second before answering. He leaned back against the wall, arm leaning across his bent knee while his other leg was stretched out across the ground.

“She was…” that signature cocky grin spread across Billy’s face. “She was into me.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I _said _none of that macho shit,” he sighed.

“I’m _serious,_” Billy grinned. “She was _definitely _interested. Had been for a while.”

Steve gave him a dubious look. Billy gave a small laugh.

“There was a group of moms who’d come by the pool over summer,” Billy explained. “She was _definitely _the hottest one there. They’d wait for my shift and try and put on a bit of a show… you know, to rival the _gun show _I’ve got going on.”

Steve rolled his eyes at Billy, who was still giving him that ridiculous smirk.

“I thought you weren’t into that kind of thing,” Steve pointed out.

“Hey, just because it’s not my thing doesn’t mean I don’t know it when I see it,” Billy pointed out. “You _need_ to if you want to pass as straight to my dad.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, before inviting him to continue.

“Anyway,” Billy said. “Karen… _well, _she’s been interested since November. I stopped by her house when I was looking for Max that… _that_ night, and… let’s just say I was everything her husband _wasn’t._”

Steve was all too familiar with everything Ted Wheeler wasn’t. He’d seen first-hand that painfully awkward family dynamic between Ted and Karen Wheeler. The only differences between the Wheelers and his own parents were that Karen was definitely the one getting more attention, Ted was yet to notice, and they were around enough for it to be a problem for Nancy.

“So what happened?” Steve asked.

“Well,” Billy said. “I finally got her to agree to a date. Didn’t take much effort; as I say, she was _interested._ We were going to this motel on Cornwallis, only…”

He trailed off, his expression going dark.

“Only what?” Steve asked.

Billy’s head snapped up and looked at him, and in an instant, Steve _knew._

“Oh,” he breathed.

Billy tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement.

“Do you… want to _talk _about it?” Steve suggested tentatively.

Billy gave him an unimpressed glare. “I don’t need a fucking _shrink, _Steve.”

Steve raised his hands defensively. “Suit yourself,” he said. “But… you know, it’s _fucked up_, what happened to you. I wouldn’t exactly think any less of you if you _did _want to talk about it. And I mean… we’ve got fuck all _else _to do-”

“Turned out Karen didn’t show, either_,_” Billy cut him off. “Had some profound moment of realisation. Came and found me the following day at the pool, started talking about her _family_ and all that crap…”

Steve let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. It was one of the most amicable subject changes away from Billy’s _feelings _that Steve had encountered during his attempts to get Billy to open up about what had happened. Any time Steve had come dangerously close to the topic of _‘talking about it’_, Billy would either lash out, or else just stop speaking and go to sleep. Something as simple as a _subject change _was, if anything, progress –

Any further progress that might have been made that evening, however, was cut off by the sound of a key scraping in the lock.

Billy and Steve both jumped at the sound, scrambling to their feet. It wasn’t _normal _– it was, by all accounts, the middle of the night. Soldiers bursting into their cell in the middle of the night did _not _bode well for them.

“What’s going on?” Billy asked.

Steve looked at him nervously. “I don’t know,” he breathed.

The door swung open to reveal four soldiers. Two of them were carrying handcuffs, which were slipped onto Steve and Billy’s wrists.

The knot of fear in Steve’s chest tightened at the feeling of cold metal around his wrists. This wasn’t normal – even when they’d taken him to see _Billy_ for the first time, they hadn’t bothered with restraints. Steve could feel his heart thumping in his chest.

His confusion and fear mounted as Steve found himself being led out of his cell and in a different direction to any way he’d been taken before. He cast a glance over his shoulder to see Billy following, watching him. As Steve made eye contact with him, Billy shook his head and gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

_Billy had no idea what was going on, either._

They were led through a labyrinthine set of corridors, through parts of the base Steve had never seen before. He tried to keep track of where he was going, but soon found himself just as lost as had ever been.

That said, when he found himself being led up a flight of stairs towards a highly polished wooden door, Steve’s confusion reached its peak.

One of the soldiers knocked on the door. A voice sounded from inside, and the soldier pushed it open.

Steve found himself being led into an office. It was clearly meant for someone senior in the base, with an elegant wooden desk and chairs and a plush carpet on the floor. However, Steve barely noticed these things in favour of the room’s occupants.

Ozerov was standing to one side of the desk, looking attentively at a man whose very presence rivalled Ozerov’s for gravitas. Steve had been mistaken in thinking that _Ozerov _was the highest man on the chain of command – _this _man put him to shame.

Billy was led in after Steve, looking nervously between Steve, Ozerov and the stranger. Steve felt the knot of anxiety in his chest ease slightly at the sight of Billy – _whatever _was going on, he wasn’t about to face it alone.

Ozerov gave Billy and Steve a genial smile that set the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck upright. There had never been anything good about Ozerov _smiling _at him, but knowing that this wasn’t simply a _Russian Colonel_ smiling at him sent Steve’s mind into overdrive.

“Comrade General Stepanov,” Ozerov said to the stranger. “I’d like you to meet Steven Harrington and William Hargrove.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I really struggled with this chapter. I've dealt with a lot of this side of depression, being in Max's shoes while people blame me for every little aspect that has been going wrong in their lives rather than them facing their problems head-on. It's caused the demise of a few friendships, because while I'm more than happy to be there for my friends when they're struggling, one of the hardest lessons I've had to learn is where to draw the line. It's not easy to walk away from someone who's clearly in pain, but I've had to learn how to do it for the sake of my sanity (being someone who deals with my own brand of mental health issues). I kind of wanted to explore that side of depression in this chapter, at how damaging it can be to the people around you, particularly when it gets to the point where you start attacking them to avoid facing your own demons. I really struggled to get this right, and frankly, I'm still not very happy with it, because it does feel very far away from Gaten Matarazzo's portrayal of Dustin in the show. That said, we've not seen much of this side of Dustin in the show - the closest I think we came to was just after Will supposedly died in season 1, just after they found his "body", so I'm hoping it's still believable. Dustin's arc is very far from resolved at this point - this is sort of a two-part turning point for him, and I hope that you'll stick with it.


	27. Part 3 Chapter 6: The New King In Town

“So _these _are the ones that you found beyond the Gate,” the man Billy assumed was called Stepanov said in English, appraising them.

Billy looked over at Steve, who gave him a nervous glance back. His eyes were wide, a small crease between his eyebrows. In their experience, two Russians speaking English together did not bode well for them.

“And which one was it that destroyed your operation in America?” Stepanov asked Ozerov.

Ozerov smiled, walking over to Steve.

“That would be _Butterscotch_ here,” Ozerov said, grabbing the hair on the back of Steve’s head and tilting his face upwards. Billy felt a surge of anger at the slight catch of breath in Steve’s throat at the movement, but the look on Steve’s face remained defiant.

Stepanov walked up to Steve, coming within inches of Steve’s face.

“You destroyed an _extremely_ important operation, do you know that?” Stepanov said quietly, looking slightly to the left of Steve’s glare before meeting his eyes. “You do not know how _lucky_ you are to still be alive.”

Billy felt something surging in his chest at Stepanov’s words, an anger pulsing through him. He chanced a quick glance at Ozerov, and was taken by surprise when he saw that Ozerov wasn’t watching Stepanov’s attempts to intimidate Steve, but rather focused on _Billy’s _reaction, a hint of amusement on his face.

“Still,” Stepanov said, turning away from Steve. “Ozerov claims that you are still useful.”

“_Yeah?_” Billy said defiantly, glaring at Ozerov. “Did he _also _say anything about the thing controlling his-”

He was broken off by a swift punch to the stomach from one of the soldiers. Stepanov, however, held up a hand, stopping the soldier from going any further.

Ozerov was simply smiling down at him.

“Please, William,” he said, grinning at Stepanov. “Continue. The Comrade General and I do like a good _ghost story._”

“That _thing’s _going to kill you,” Steve interjected, looking straight at Stepanov. “I know it _looks _like your _comrade_, but it’s not. It got _him, _and now it’s coming for _you._”

Steve’s tone wasn’t fearful, it wasn’t alarmed, it was simply matter-of-fact.

“_He _didn’t listen,” Steve flicked his eyes sideways towards Ozerov. “_You’ve _got a chance now. Don’t make his mistake.”

Stepanov’s expression was completely unreadable, entirely neutral as he looked between Steve and Billy. He turned back to Ozerov.

“_Gde ty ikh nashel?_” Stepanov asked.

Steve’s shoulders slumped a fraction, his eyes falling shut for a moment. Billy watched him as he opened them, feeling his own disappointment settle in the pit of his stomach.

“_V Starcourt,_” Ozerov said.

Billy and Steve’s heads both snapped up to the conversation in front of them at the mention of Starcourt.

“_On znayet, gde byli Vorota?_”

Steve’s ears caught the word _‘Vorota’. _He’d come across it in the instructions, he’d heard it mentioned a few times amongst the soldiers. He was _fairly _certain it meant ‘Gate,’ but he had no idea what else was being said.

“_Ya dumayu tak,_” Ozerov responded.

For the first time since Stepanov had entered the room, he smiled. Much like Ozerov’s leer, it was a sinister sight.

“I think…” Stepanov said, looking at Steve, “it is time to see what _else _he knows.”

He barked a command in Russian. Immediately, the soldiers flanking Steve grabbed his arms, trying to push Steve away towards the door. Steve threw a concerned look at Billy, but neither of the soldiers around Billy made any movement.

_They were only taking Steve._

White hot rage and blinding fear shot through Billy’s body like a lightning bolt.

“_No!_” Billy hissed, pushing towards Steve –

Hands immediately grabbed his arms. Another blow landed in his stomach, but Billy didn’t care. He shoved his shoulder sideways into the soldier, trying to wrench his arm free. He was dimly aware of Steve shouting his name – _he wasn’t going to let them be separated._

“Get _off _me!” Billy growled, swinging his elbow wildly as the soldier fought to redouble his grip on his arm.

Ozerov and Stepanov seemed completely unfazed by Billy’s struggles. Stepanov took a step around the soldiers holding Steve, pulling out a black pistol –

Suddenly, Billy saw Steve struggling.

“_Billy!_” Steve yelled. “Billy, _stop!_ It’s okay! It’s okay, I’ll be okay-”

Stepanov raised the pistol, aiming it squarely at Billy’s head –

“_Comrade General!_”

Ozerov had a hand on the top of Stepanov’s gun.

“_On vse yeshche polezen,_” Ozerov said.

Stepanov froze, glaring at Billy. He swung his glare sideways at Ozerov.

“_On nuzhen mne zhivym_,” Ozerov said. “_Ya derzhal ikh vmeste po prichine. My mozhem ispol'zovat' ikh drug protiv druga._”

Billy looked past Stepanov to where Steve was standing, still flanked by two soldiers. Fear was etched into Steve’s face, his breath visibly coming fast.

_Fear for Billy._

Billy sagged slightly, the tension leaving his muscles. He didn’t look away from Steve, his heart pounding in his chest.

“It’s going to be okay,” Steve said breathlessly. He didn’t smile.

Stepanov lowered the pistol and Billy could see the relief wash over Steve. Another barked order followed, and the soldiers around Steve redoubled their grip as they started to lead him out of the room. Steve didn’t fight them, holding Billy’s gaze for as long as he could.

Billy could hardly stand the helpless feeling that washed over him. Ozerov nodded at the soldiers holding Billy, who immediately grabbed Billy’s arms again and started to lead him out of the room. Billy’s anger redoubled as he finally met Ozerov’s gaze, the white-hot rage surging again as he found himself longing to wrap his hands around the neck of the monster.

But a second later, Ozerov was gone. Billy found himself being led back to the cell, where he was thrown on the floor. He curled into himself, his chest aching. He _knew _the fear he’d seen in Steve’s eyes. He’d felt it himself far too many times – an ice-cold terror gripping his heart that he was about to lose someone.

Quite _when _he’d become so jaded to a pistol being shoved in his own face by someone more than capable of pulling the trigger, Billy didn’t know. But the desperate imploring of Steve had been like a vice clenching his chest. Steve knew – arguably more than Billy did – that these people would have shot him without hesitation. So Steve, who apparently shared a similar disregard for his own health to Billy, had all but _begged _him to stop.

Seeing that fear so blatant on Steve’s face had twisted Billy’s gut. He’d _felt _that fear before –

_Watching Steve hunched over a bucket in a darkened bedroom, hearing those awful, choking coughs fill the silence, running his own hands through Steve’s sweat-soaked hair to keep it from catching on the blood on his lips –_

Steve had already watched one execution in this hellhole. Billy had stopped so that he wouldn’t have to see another.

Unfortunately, that meant that the gut-twisting fear of losing someone was now entirely _Billy’s. _Steve was gone, with the Russians doing _God knows what _to him –

That wasn’t quite true. He’d seen what the Russians would do to Steve. He knew, with more terrifying clarity than he’d ever imagined, what was happening to Steve. His memories gave him horrifying images of what would happen, what it would look like when Steve finally broke once again –

_Watching Steve convulse, strapped to a bench, coughing up water as he lost the contents of his stomach, begging for some respite, begging _Billy _for some respite, for any help, a desperate last resource for his own sanity –_

Billy pulled his legs closer to him, praying that Steve would be okay when he came back.

He tried not to think about _if _he would come back.

-:-

El’s heart sank as Max pulled up her bike outside the Byers’ house to see Hopper’s new Cruiser parked outside.

“See you at school,” El said quietly, getting off the back of the bike, bracing herself to face the music. She walked up to the porch and knocked quietly on the door.

The door swung open almost immediately to reveal Joyce standing there, looking relieved to see her.

“_Sweetie_,” she said the second she saw her. “Where have you _been? _We’ve been worried sick.”

El walked into the living room to find Jonathan and Hopper looking like they’d either just got in themselves or were about to go back out again.

“_El,_” Jonathan sighed when he saw her. “What happened? Where the hell _were _you? We were waiting for you after school.”

The surprise at this must have shown on her face, because Will suddenly cut in.

“After about twenty minutes, I started asking around, but someone said they saw you leave_. _What _happened?_”

El couldn’t deal with this right now. She was completely overwhelmed by what had happened at Weathertop. It had been the first time in a _long _time that she’d ended up using her powers, and it had been because she’d lost control. Dustin and Max were _never _likely to make up – not after that – and Dustin’s words were still ringing in her ears.

_“We’re not friends.”_

He _was _a friend. He’d been a friend for as long as she’d _had _friends. He’d been a friend for as long as she’d known the concept of _friendship._

“_Well?_” Hopper asked, his anger not quite hiding the concern underneath. “Where the hell _were _you?”

There would be another lecture. She _knew _that much. She’d been stupid. She shouldn’t have left school like that. She shouldn’t have gone with _Max, _Hopper had been quite clear about that as well, but it had been so _important._

She didn’t know how to make this right.

“Dustin,” she finally said. “I wanted to make things right.”

Will’s expression changed into one of understanding, but everyone else still looked confused.

“_What?_” Hopper frowned at her in confusion. “Why couldn’t you talk to him at school or something?”

“He wasn’t… _at _school,” El said, looking at her sadly.

“He wasn’t at _school _today?” Joyce asked, sounding concerned.

“He’s been skipping,” Will explained quietly. “He’s done it a few times now.”

Jonathan looked at Will in confusion. “_Seriously?_”

Will nodded. “He got into an argument with Max yesterday,” he explained. “I don’t know what she said to him, but he freaked out. He basically _ran _out of school. We tried to go after him, but…”

He trailed off. Dustin had taken off on his bike in the rain. Given the weather, they’d all gotten lifts from either Nancy or Jonathan, but Dustin had chosen to ride to school. When he’d taken off the previous day, they didn’t catch up with him, and had decided to leave him alone for the time being.

“Did you find him?” Will asked El.

El took a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes drifting shut before she nodded.

Will looked at her, worry settling in the pit of his stomach.

“What did he say?” he asked, trepidation heavy in his voice.

Tears started to slip down El’s face. “He said we weren’t _friends _anymore.”

It was such a simple thing, but hearing it said out loud, spat at her across that hilltop after her powers had sent him flying, had completely devastated her. She felt like she’d lost a limb. The situation with Mike had been thoroughly ambiguous since that day in the woods – he’d been radio silent for the rest of the summer, and every time he’d spoken to her at school, he was awkward and shy, but he’d look out for her, he’d talk to her in the corridors, and by all accounts, he missed her. The situation with Lucas was almost a non-issue. His main objection to the whole affair had been Max shutting him out, as opposed to anything else. With Will, it had been complicated. Something had definitely changed between them, but Hopper and Joyce’s blossoming relationship had prevented any serious degree of estrangement, and whatever Will’s feelings _were_ towards her, he was being civil, possibly even _friendly_.

So to hear those words from Dustin, flung at her in pure rage and hate, had floored her.

“Oh, _sweetheart,_” Joyce said softly, a gentle hand coming to rest on El’s arm as tears continued to fall down her face.

“I just wanted to help Max,” she said. “It was the only way. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

Joyce peeled off the wet raincoat and pulled her into a hug.

“I know,” Joyce said. “I know.”

“He started shouting at Max…” El was aware of how thick her voice sounded.

“Wait, _Max_ was there?” Hopper started, but was silenced by a glare and a shake of the head from Joyce.

El nodded. “She started… talking about her momma… And she _said…_ if Billy could come back, things would be better. She said… she said she wasn’t sorry. But Dustin didn’t… he didn’t _like_ it. So she… she said…”

The words wouldn’t come out. They lodged in her throat, catching in a sob.

“She said it was Dustin’s fault… What happened to Steve…”

The atmosphere in the room changed. Jonathan’s eyebrows shot up. Will’s eyes fell closed, letting out a long, low exhale. Hopper ran a hand over his face.

“_Jesus,_” Hopper breathed.

“Dustin started saying the same thing to Max…” El continued, looking up at Hopper, her eyes shining with tears. “He said… Neil was _her _fault. Billy was her fault. They started fighting.”

“_Shit,_” Will breathed, leaning forward and looking at the floor.

“I…” El broke off, not looking at anyone. “I _stopped _them fighting. We were _friends. _But then… then Dustin said we _weren’t…_”

She closed her eyes as a fresh wave of tears rolled down her face. She looked up at Hopper, _begging _him to understand.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said thickly.

Joyce rubbed her back. “I don’t think there’s much more you _can _do, sweetheart,” she explained. “You’ve tried apologising, but I think he just needs _time._”

Hopper leant back against the wall. “I’ll go talk to him tomorrow,” he breathed.

“I don’t think that’s going to help,” Will said quietly. “I’ve _tried _talking to him. I talked to him when he first skipped class. He doesn’t _want _help. At least… not from _us._”

“I can talk to Robin,” Jonathan suggested. “He might open up to her if he’s not talking to you guys-”

“He’ll talk to me,” Hopper said, giving no indication he’d heard Jonathan. “He’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

-:-

It was dark by the time Dustin picked himself up off the hilltop. His clothes were completely waterlogged, mud staining his jeans and jacket – _Steve’s _jacket. He had just about managed to regain control of his breathing, having spent most of the time after Max and El had left choking on sobs and his own panic.

_Max had no right to say those things about him. She had no right to say that _he _was responsible for Steve’s death. She hadn’t been there – she hadn’t had to make the choice between one of his best friends and the sister of another. After what she’d done, she had no right whatsoever to say those things._

_No matter how true they were._

He didn’t know how late it was when he finally got home, but evidently it was late enough to see a police car sitting in his driveway. It wasn’t Hopper’s Cruiser – it was a standard-issue sedan.

Dustin propped his bike up against the fence, his heart thundering as he opened the door.

“…Mrs Henderson, I know you’re worried, but your son’s just playing hooky,” he heard Officer Callahan say from the living room. “I suggest you call his friends again, maybe start with the girls who told you he’d skipped-”

“_Dusty!_”

His mom cut off whatever Callahan was saying as he finally stepped into the doorway of the living room. She ran across the room, stopping short as she took in his appearance.

He must have looked terrible. He was drenched – he was painfully aware of the fact he was dripping all over the carpet. His clothes were covered in mud from when El had thrown him and Max away from each other, his hair was so wet it was almost lying flat against his scalp, and he probably had bruises all over his face from where Max had hit him. His eyes were probably bloodshot from crying, and he couldn’t stop the shivers that wracked his body from having spent the entire day on an open hilltop in an October storm.

“Dusty, what _happened?_” his mom said, her fingers lightly brushing the bruise on his cheek. “I was so worried. Max and El came by looking for you and they said you’d skipped _school…_”

Dustin closed his eyes and fresh tears rolled down his face, mixing with the rain that already covered it.

“Dusty, honey bun, what’s going _on _with you lately?”

He felt her start to peel off the jacket off his shoulders, taking it off and hanging it up on the coat rack in the hall. He tried to take a deep breath in, but it shook and shuddered too much to calm him.

“It was my fault,” he finally confessed, his voice tiny. “I’m the reason he’s g-gone…”

His mom pulled him inside and sat him down on the couch. “_Who’s _gone, Dusty?”

Dustin closed his eyes as his mom put an arm around him.

“S-Steve,” he gasped. “I had a chance to go back for him, only I _didn’t. _I could have helped him, I could have _saved _him, but I didn’t… I left him there, holding that door, and now he’s…”

He choked on a sob. Callahan stood up, motioning that he was about to leave. His mom nodded at Callahan before turning back to Dustin.

“He’s gone, and it’s _all my fault,_” he choked out. “I could have gone back for him, I could have _saved _him but I _didn’t._”

“Oh, _Dusty,_” his mom said, with far too much sympathy in her voice. “It wasn’t your fault, there was nothing you could have done-”

“I had a _chance, _mom,” he insisted, a fresh wave of tears clouding his voice. “I had a chance to get him out of there… I could have _saved _him, I could have saved him, I could have…”

He trailed off as sobs started to take over, falling against his mom’s side. He knew he was getting water all over her, all over their couch, but he couldn’t move. He was shaking – whether from cold or sadness, he didn’t know – but his mom seemed to completely disregard it, pulling him closer and pressing her face against his sopping curls.

“I know it’s hard, Dusty,” she said against his head. “And I’m so, _so _sorry. You shouldn’t have to go through this. _None _of this should have happened. But you _can’t _blame yourself. If you’d gone back to try and help him, _you _might have ended up getting hurt. And I don’t think Steve would have done what he did if he hadn’t thought that you, and Mike and Lucas and Will, and that Robin girl, and everyone else who got out, were going to get hurt. And he wouldn’t want you to keep blaming yourself. And I don’t think he’d want you missing school. He _certainly _wouldn’t want you missing school to spend the day getting completely soaked.”

Dustin sniffed, a lump forming in his throat. He felt another shiver run through his body – one that evidently his mom noticed as well.

“Dusty, you’re _freezing,_” she said. “Why don’t you go have a warm bath and get into some dry clothes. I’ll make you up a cup of cocoa and we can talk about this some more, okay?”

He didn’t have the energy to argue, even if he’d had the inclination to do so. The idea of a bath was just far too tempting. He managed to drag himself into the bathroom and peeled off the layers of sodden clothing, discarding them into the laundry basket that lived under the sink as the tub filled with warm water.

The warmth was a shock to the system as he lowered himself into the tub. His hands and feet felt like they were seizing up as blood suddenly rushed back into them, his body relishing in the warmth. It was soothing – he hadn’t realised how much his muscles had been aching until they started to relax under the heat. He lowered his head underwater, allowing the warm water to replace the rain in his hair. He pulled himself back up and reached for the shampoo on the side of the bath –

His hand froze as he took in the Fabergé label. The sight of it felt like a knife in his chest, stabbing and twisting until he had nothing left.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t explain it. He couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t have it in him to explain to anyone why this was hurting so much – why it was _still _hurting so much.

He didn’t even have it in him to explain it to himself.

-:-

Claudia kept Dustin off school the following day.

It had surprised Dustin more than anyone when she’d announced it after Dustin had emerged from the bathroom in his pyjamas. But she’d made up her mind after Joyce Byers had called the house, asking if Dustin had made it home. It had slipped Claudia’s mind to call her back – she’d rung most of Dustin’s friends in a panic after she’d realised he hadn’t been at school that day, and after everything _Joyce _had been through with regards to missing children, it was no wonder she’d called to follow up.

The blind panic that had overtaken her at the revelation that Dustin hadn’t been at school was not a welcome feeling. After the summer, she’d made a point to know _exactly _where Dustin was at any given time. However, she was forced to acknowledge that Dustin was in high school now, and so she’d been trying to find a balance between giving his freedom while knowing where he was at all times for her own sake.

She’d _thought_ she’d found the right balance. Evidently, though, she’d been wrong.

So she’d called up the school that evening to explain that Dustin had come down with something, and that she wanted to keep him off school for another day.

This wasn’t a complete lie. She _was _worried Dustin might wake up with a cold after spending the day out in the rain, but she also felt that he might need another day away from everything. She wasn’t _overly_ worried about schoolwork – Dustin had always been bright; he could catch up with schoolwork quite easily. What she was _more _worried about was how badly Dustin seemed to have been affected by the events of the summer, and, quite honestly, if it was a choice between Dustin falling behind at school, or Dustin falling further down this black hole that was swallowing him up, then school could wait for another day.

It transpired that it had been the right decision when she’d tried to talk to him after the bath only to find him completely exhausted. When she asked him a question, his responses were borderline monosyllabic. Any suggestions she might have had were met with a lack of any real acknowledgement. Tears slipped down his face as he’d ended up lying on the couch. The most animated he’d gotten had been when Tews had jumped onto the couch next to him, curling up next to his arm, clearly put out that her favourite cushion was occupied. To cheer her up, Dustin had started petting her. The tears had stopped at that, as he’d just focused on scratching her just behind the ears while she purred appreciatively, but the responses to Claudia had stopped at that as well.

She’d sent him to bed not long after that, promising to talk in the morning.

She was surprised the following morning by a knock on the door. It was a little after eight, at about the time that she’d normally be leaving for work, but she’d taken the day off.

She was even more surprised by the sight of Jim Hopper at the door.

“Hi,” he said. “I was hoping to talk to Dustin.”

Claudia frowned at him, confused, but stepped aside to let him in.

“Callahan told me he came out to your house yesterday,” Hopper explained. “Something about your kid playing hooky and you calling the police. Said he showed up in pretty bad shape.”

“Erm… _yes,_” Claudia replied guardedly. “It was… I probably shouldn’t have, but he’s had a rough time, and-”

Hopper held up a hand to stop her. After what had happened to Will Byers, and with Mayor Harrington breathing down his neck, he was not about to dismiss _anyone’s _concerns over missing children. Especially not when it was one of _these _kids.

“It’s fine,” he said, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I understand. I just wanted to check up on him.”

“Sure – uh…” she looked around wildly, as though Dustin may have magically appeared, even though she knew he was still in his room. “He hasn’t been up yet, I’ve… I’ve kept him off school today because – well – when he came back last night he was soaked through, and I’m worried he might have a cold…”

“I’m not social services, I’m not about to come down on you for keeping him at home,” Hopper cut through her babbling. “Is he in his room?”

Claudia nodded, pointing down the hall. “Last door on the left,” she said. “Do you want me to…?”

Hopper shook his head. “Probably best if I talk to him on my own,” he said, going for another reassuring smile before turning and walking down the corridor.

He knocked softly on the door to be met with a grunt on the other side. He took that as all the invitation he needed, turning the handle and opening the door.

“Mom, I’m okay, I don’t need cocoa,” Dustin grumbled from his bed, his back to the door.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not your mom, then,” Hopper said to announce his presence.

Dustin nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his voice, twisting in the covers. The comforter wrapped itself around him as he frantically tried to scramble out of bed, resulting in his legs getting caught as he tried to sit up. He lost his balance, falling back against the mattress with a soft thud.

“What are you doing here?” Dustin stammered.

“I heard about what happened yesterday,” Hopper said. “Got the whole story from about three different people. I was hoping we could talk.”

“Uh…” Dustin paused, making another attempt at sitting himself up into a more dignified position.

“El told me what Max said,” Hopper said, grabbing the desk chair and sitting himself down. “She told me all about the fight you two had. _Apparently, _you two aren’t friends anymore, is that true?”

Dustin rubbed a hand over his eyes, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “Uh… I guess not…”

“Real upset about that, she was,” Hopper said, leaning forward. “Real worried, too.”

Dustin didn’t know what to say to that.

“She’s not the only one,” Hopper said, giving Dustin a look that seemed to penetrate straight through his skull and into his mind. “Will has his concerns. Your mom called everyone in a right state last night, including me. You’ve got a lot of people worried about you, kid.”

Dustin swallowed.

“Oh,” was all he could manage.

Hopper tilted his head to look at the glass tank at one end of the room. The tortoise wasn’t visible, hidden underneath the small rocky feature that was set up at one end.

“So let’s talk,” Hopper said. “And let’s _start _with this idea you seem to have that you’re somehow responsible for Steve Harrington’s death.”

The all-too-familiar weight settled in Dustin’s stomach.

“I should have gone back for him,” Dustin breathed. “I should have tried to save him-”

“Kid, there was nothing you could have done,” Hopper said. “You did the right thing getting out of that place and finding the others – finding _me._ You got that Sinclair kid out in one piece. It was the right call, and if you’d made any _other _call, you’d have put yourself as well as her at risk.”

“I should have _tried!_” Dustin snapped. “I could have got him out of there, they wouldn’t have _hurt _him-”

“Kid, it wasn’t your fault-”

“Yes, it _was!_” Dustin said, the familiar feeling of tears pricking his eyes.

He glared at Hopper. Hopper didn’t so much as flinch at the burning look in his eyes, instead meeting them with a look of pure sympathy.

“No, it wasn’t,” Hopper said softly. “I know it, and more importantly, so did _he._”

That took Dustin by surprise. He felt the shock show on his face, his eyes widening, his eyebrows shooting up.

“Did anyone ever tell you what happened?” Hopper said, running a hand over his face. He didn’t like to think about that day, but the kid wrapped in blankets clearly needed to hear it.

“Robin mentioned something about a Russian soldier,” Dustin said softly. “You tried to fight him, and Steve went to help.”

Hopper nodded. “Yeah,” he breathed. “The kid got him off me long enough for me to take him out. It damaged the machine though, and the kid… well, he was trapped on the wrong side of it.”

Dustin didn’t know whether he wanted to hear this. He knew that the details of Steve’s demise would haunt his nightmares, but he still listened with morbid fascination to Hopper.

“Well, the kid had a chance to say something,” Hopper said, passing his hand over his face. “He told me to look after all of you. _Especially _you.”

Dustin’s eyes fell closed, and he felt the tears in his eyes fall down his cheeks.

“He _also _said that it wasn’t your fault.”

Dustin’s eyes snapped open. His lips parted slightly, his breath catching in his throat.

“Now, kid, I’m not ever going to forget what he said,” Hopper ran a hand over his face again. “I’ve been carrying that with me ever since. And that’s okay. But I think he _knew _– or at least had some idea that this was going to get stuck in your head. And I’m pretty sure ‘making sure you don’t skip school because this is eating you up’ was pretty much _exactly _what that kid meant when he told me to look after you. I _know _what it’s like to lose someone like that. I know what you’re going through. And… _damn it, _I’m not going to let this ruin your life.”

Dustin swallowed again, a very familiar lump forming in his throat.

“Now, Doctor Owens knows a couple of counsellors. They’ve worked with Will before, they know the score, they’re not going to think you’re crazy. I’m going to make an appointment with one of them, and you’re going to keep it. I’ll drive you there myself if I have to. You can’t go through shit like this alone, and I know for a fact that Harrington wouldn’t want you to.”

Hopper leant forwards, resting his arms on his knees as Dustin met his eyes again.

“And damn it, kid, there’s no way in Hell that I’m going to let you.”

-:-

Steve didn’t come back that night.

The key scraped in the lock, sending Billy bolting to his feet. He hadn’t slept, he was _far _too on edge for oblivion to wash over him. His heart thundered in his chest as the door swung open to reveal –

The soldier carrying his food.

There was only one portion. One portion of bland sustenance, a single glass of water set beside him.

_Maybe they’d moved Steve to another cell._

He clung to that idea, wolfing down the one meal he was likely to get that day, chugging the water in a rush. The soldiers practically had to stop him from rushing into the room to be blasted with cold water next to a group of strangers who didn’t speak a word he understood.

He was positively _cooperative_ as they took him to the workshop. A departure from tradition, to be sure, but Billy did take a certain amount of satisfaction at the confused glances sent his way by the soldiers, evidently set on edge by his sudden change in attitude.

He was led into the workshop over to what he was now certain was an electromagnet –

Only to find a complete absence of Steve.

His stomach twisted uncomfortably as he looked around. He finally understood the complete feeling of hopelessness that Steve must have felt when he’d first arrived here, left to deal with whatever the Russians would throw at him with an unsettling lack of knowledge.

He sifted through the blueprints, working through what he and Steve had managed to translate. He saw the circled words, with occasional scrawled translations in Steve’s handwriting, but these had evidently become less and less necessary to Steve as sheer saturation in this had started to ingrain meanings into his head.

Billy, however, had no such knowledge, generally being the manual side of this awkward partnership that he’d found himself in with Steve. Left to his own devices, he started sifting through the old blueprints, trying to find the few meanings he’d need.

He ended up relying more on his own intuition and memory to get him through the day. He was sure that what he’d done did not tally up to the instructions, but he found that he didn’t much care. When the bell rang and he was sent to line up against the wall, he found himself casting a glance down the line, looking to see any sign of Steve.

There was nothing.

The ball of anxiety was twisting in his stomach at the terrifying prospect. His mind was in freefall as he found himself being pushed into the cell, his heart thundering in his chest. The cell was still completely empty.

Billy ran his hands through his hair, breathing hard. He couldn’t lose it, _he couldn’t lose it…_

He didn’t know for certain that Steve was gone. He’d only been gone for a day –

_He could be dead –_

Or they could just have separated them –

_And he might never see Steve again…_

Billy fell back against the wall, pulling at the hair against his scalp. Despite the cold, despite everything, he felt hot – _too hot _–

He needed to calm down. He couldn’t lose his head.

He breathed in… _and out…_

_In… and out…_

Nice and controlled. He could do this. Steve wasn’t dead, he wasn’t gone forever, he just… _wasn’t here._

_No, he was just off getting tortured somewhere –_

He didn’t know that. He just needed to get his head on straight. Then he could start working out exactly what had happened to Steve.

Fresh memories started assaulting his mind. He could _hear _Steve’s screams echoing in his memory, begging for some relief. He could see Steve curled up on the floor, completely broken, no semblance of anything that made him who he was, simply giving Billy and Ozerov the answers that he thought they’d wanted, incapable of giving them anything more, a complete wreck of everything that he’d been.

But somehow, Steve had come back from that. He’d come back from that shaking, broken form to something with some semblance of _fight, _doing everything he could not to allow himself to be put in that position again. And while Billy had felt a strong sense of anger and annoyance at that, a part of him – that part that had _been _him – had been _amazed._

Billy had continuously found himself amazed by everything he’d seen of Steve since finding him in that _place._ From the way he’d handled those _monsters _in the tunnels under Hawkins to his unwavering determination to simply _stay alive_, and failing that, to keep on trying to his last breath to find a way out of this horrific situation they’d found themselves in, to the sheer strength of will it had taken to fight that _thing_ to stop it taking up residence inside his head like it had done with Billy, even to the point of choosing _death _over that…

Billy had constantly been surprised by what he’d seen in Steve. The _Mind Flayer _had constantly been surprised by what he’d seen in Steve.

And somehow, even despite _everything _he’d been through – despite everything _Billy _had put him through – Steve could still look Billy in the eye with humour_, _with care, with _friendship_. He’d still accepted everything that had happened as that _monster, _despite Billy’s own reservations on the subject.

Because it hadn’t _always _been the monster. The monster came and went when it suited. But _Billy… _he’d been there the whole time.

Billy didn’t think he’d be able to look at _himself _with such acceptance.

He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a key scraping in the lock once again. Billy scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding in his chest as the door swung open…

Two soldiers were carrying a third figure between them, dragging him into the room. Dark hair obscured his face as the soldiers dropped him in the centre of the floor.

Billy dropped down beside him, pushing Steve’s hair away from his face. His heart was thundering in his chest as he took in Steve’s appearance.

Bruises were blossoming over his face. Billy turned him onto his side, wincing as they travelled down his neck and onto his chest and back. His wrists were red, raw from whatever restraints the Russians had used. The skin had split in several places; Billy winced at a particularly nasty gash poking out of the back of his shirt, the neckline falling to reveal a series of swollen bruises, mottled black and purple, indicating that what lay between the dark grey uniform was worse than what Billy could see.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the part that made Billy’s heart stop was the water on his face, clinging to his hair, a damp stain on the front of Steve’s uniform.

Billy knew _exactly _what had happened to him.

Steve wasn’t unconscious, exactly, but he wasn’t lucid, either. His whole body was shaking. He flinched under Billy’s touch, particularly when Billy brushed his hair away from his face.

“_Easy_, easy,” Billy said softly. “It’s only me. It’s Billy.”

Steve gave no sign he’d heard Billy. He was still shaking, his left leg occasionally twitching. Billy found himself pulling Steve against his chest, leaning back until he was lying down, head propped up against the wall. He wrapped his arms around Steve as he trembled against Billy’s left side, his head leaning on Billy’s chest. Billy’s left arm was secure around Steve’s shoulders, his right arm holding Steve’s head in place.

Billy curled his head up, pressing his face into Steve’s hair, whispering what little words of comfort he had to offer.

“It’s okay,” Billy breathed against Steve’s head. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

How long they stayed like that, neither of them knew. Steve couldn’t remember making it back to the cell. He started to become aware of where he was, simply by feeling the heartbeat against his cheek.

It was grounding.

_He didn’t remember what he’d said. He couldn’t even remember what the questions had been about. It had gone on for too long, relentless, physical blows replacing the water when he was too far away from himself to be of any use to anyone._

The heartbeat pressed against his cheek, the soft rhythm bringing him back to a happier reality.

_He remembered feeling that heartbeat pressing into his back in a happier time – not a perfect time, but a happier one – when he’d found himself being given a lifeline._

He could feel another rhythm – the rise and fall in time with breathing. He found himself trying to match it with his own breaths.

_In… and out…_

There were arms around him, holding him secure. A hand gently holding his head in place, while another arm wrapped around his shoulders, bracing him against his side. Firm enough to make Steve feel safe, but not tight enough to hurt. They had so much _care…_

_He remembered being held in a similar manner. His body had failed him, but those hands held him steady, anchoring him to life, lifting him up when he’d lacked any strength to move._

“Please don’t let me go,” Steve breathed.

It was so quiet that Steve was surprised it was audible, but he felt the sudden change. Billy’s breath caught in surprise, the muscles in his body tensing slightly, before the hand on Steve’s head gently ran its way through his hair.

“I won’t,” Billy breathed back.

Steve could feel his lips move against his scalp, pressing themselves together. Steve _knew _his hair must be a mess. He knew how tangled it had to be, but he didn’t have it in him to care.

He finally let his eyes drift open. He blinked until the cell came back into focus, taking in his position, lying on Billy’s chest. His breath caught in his throat – it wasn’t a _surprise, _exactly, but his heart began to beat faster.

He pushed himself up slightly, readjusting himself. His head came to rest on Billy’s shoulder as he nestled closer into his side, his eyes falling shut again. Billy adjusted his arms slightly, his left arm moving slightly further down to rest on Steve’s back. He kept a hand on Steve’s head.

Steve twisted his head slightly, looking up at Billy’s face. His dark brown eyes met Billy’s own blue ones. Steve’s gaze was slightly hazy. His lips parted a fraction, as though he wanted to say something, but words seemed to fail him. He simply lay there, his face inches from Billy’s own. Billy could feel Steve’s heart pounding against his side, and he was sure Steve could feel his own heart underneath the hand that had come to rest against his chest.

Steve’s eyes fell closed.

Billy felt his do the same.

The pain of the world fell away as their lips finally met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... it only took 169,937 words and 324 pages of A4 (I actually checked on my big master document) to get to this point, but AT BLOODY LAST I got them together. (Is now a bad time to mention that I'm secretly not very comfortable at writing romance? Torture, yes. Angst, also yes. Violent fight scenes? Absolutely. Happy couples who were absolutely made for each other getting together? Jesus H. Christ on a bike no.) However, I did promise Harringrove, but I also promised a slow burn. I was not kidding about the latter, but let's get to the former now. (I must say though, it feels appropriate (if not somewhat coincidental) to drop this chapter on Valentine's Day...)
> 
> Also, can we please appreciate Claudia Henderson's parenting skills? I've always loved her character, I really love her dynamic with Dustin in the show, and I've wanted to explore it a bit in this fic.
> 
> ALSO also, who's seen the new teaser trailer for Season 4? Not going to spoil anything in case anyone hasn't seen it, but hands up who saw that coming?


	28. Part 3 Chapter 7: Chance Is A Funny Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So minor point - yes, this chapter does open with a semi-graphic description of kissing. However, it does not go beyond that, sticking solidly to my... err... ATTEMPT at a PG-13 rating... (like a normal PG-13 rating would allow this much swearing...)

Steve’s chest pressed against Billy’s as he opened his mouth a fraction more. Billy’s hand held his head steady, burying itself into his hair in a hold that was gentle but secure. The beginning of the beard scratched against Steve’s chin, while Steve’s own stubble felt rough against Billy’s cheek. Their lips felt dry against each other, the long periods of dehydration leaving them cracked and coarse.

Steve pushed himself up slightly, adjusting his body into a more comfortable position, settling his hands against Billy’s sides, while Billy shifted himself up to match him. The arm that was not buried in Steve’s hair was still wrapped around Steve’s shoulders, holding him still. Steve was still shaking, slightly uncontrolled. Billy tightened his grip just a fraction, in what he hoped was a steady, reassuring way.

They could feel each other’s heartbeats against their chests, the way their breath caught in their throats, parting their lips just long enough to snatch the barest minimum of oxygen they required before Billy would pull Steve closer again, tasting every inch of Steve’s mouth. Billy took control, his spirit soaring in a way that it hadn’t done since he’d heard Steve’s unbridled, unconditional acceptance of him.

_We get to write our own rules here._

Steve ran his hand up to Billy’s cheek, pulling him closer into the kiss. A breath seemed to catch in his throat as Billy responded, his mouth opening wider as his tongue pressed against Steve’s. Steve felt his teeth brush against Billy’s lips as he tried to respond in kind – the kiss held none of his usual finesse – but it didn’t matter as they pressed themselves together, the hand on the back of Steve’s head pulling him in closer, as if there was any space between them still to close.

Suddenly, something seemed to catch Billy off-guard and he pulled away slightly. Steve immediately eased his hands away from him, but didn’t quite remove them completely from Billy’s skin, his fingertips still maintaining the gentlest of contact. He opened his eyes to find Billy looking back at him, worry storming in the bright blue depths.

“Sorry,” Steve breathed. “Did I…?”

Billy pressed his lips together, flicking his eyes downwards, not meeting Steve’s.

“No,” he breathed back, and Steve could feel Billy’s breath on his cheek. “It’s just… you said it yourself. This isn’t _you._”

And now Steve looked away. His eyes came to settle on a patch of dirt on the concrete floor. It _was _true, he’d never considered the possibility that he might be interested in men. He’d _known_ for an extremely long time that he’d liked women. He’d felt physical connections with girls, and when Nancy had come along, he’d started to learn how to build emotional connections as well – emotional connections he’d never built before. For a long time, that had been enough, and Steve had never considered anything more to it. But the way his heart had raced, the way every fibre of his being had seemed to sing as his lips had met Billy’s, forgetting the agony that he’d been put through only hours before as he leant into Billy’s embrace…

“I haven’t known who I am for a _really _long time,” Steve breathed, not looking at Billy. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I don’t know if we’re ever going to make it home. I’ve not known what’s been _real, _or _right, _for years. But _that…_”

He looked back up at Billy’s face, staring into the depths of his blue eyes.

“That felt more right to me than anything else ever has,” he said, the weight of his sincerity causing a warm weight in his chest to expand in a way that felt painful, but still so _right._

Billy’s eyes fell shut, squeezing tightly as he pressed his lips together, forcing back something. Steve felt a familiar twist in his gut as he realised what was happening, closing the gap between them once again and wrapping his arms around Billy. He pulled Billy close, letting him lean his head on Steve’s shoulder. Steve did something similar, resting the side of his face against the crook of Billy’s neck.

_Well, shit._

_He’d managed to make Billy Hargrove cry._

“This…” Steve murmured into Billy’s neck, “is such a mess. We shouldn’t be here. It’s… _completely fucked up._ But since you came…”

Steve had to swallow the lump in his throat, finally letting his own tears fall as he closed his eyes against the world. He adjusted his grip around Billy, holding him tighter as he felt Billy do the same to him.

“Since you came back to me…” he continued, trying to hold his voice steady. “I can’t tell you how… how much _better _it’s been… Not having to go through this shit on my own. I’ve felt _stronger… _I’ve felt _safer _with you around… Like there’s a _point _again… A point to _me_ again…”

Billy choked on a sob – the first sob he’d actually allowed to escape his lips as he pressed his head into Steve’s shoulder. He let out a shaking, trembling breath – _God, he was losing it on Steve’s shoulder when Steve was still shaking himself…_

“I’m sorry,” Billy gasped. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for everything…”

Steve held on tighter to Billy, letting himself melt into Billy’s arms. “It’s okay,” he breathed back.

“No, it’s _not_,” Billy choked out. “I’m so sorry for what that _thing_ did to you – I’m so sorry for what I _let _it do to you – I’m so sorry for what _I _did to you – I couldn’t stop it – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

Steve pressed his lips together to bite back a sob of his own, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as fresh tears ran down his face.

“I’m sorry for that night,” Billy gasped out. “I’m sorry for who I was… _God… _I’m sorry for _everything…_”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Steve breathed back, a feeling of something in his chest unravelling – as though a tight restraint around his chest had suddenly snapped, releasing him as he leant against Billy. “None of that matters anymore. It doesn’t matter who we were back then. What matters is _here and now._ We don’t have to be those people anymore. We can make a second chance for ourselves. Be who _we _want to be. We’re prisoners in just about every way, but they can’t keep _that _from us. We can be free.”

Echoes of similar words Steve had said in the past shot through Billy’s mind as he pulled his head out of Steve’s shoulder to look back into those brown eyes. He felt another twist of guilt in his gut at the sight of the tears on Steve’s face, trying to reach up a shaking hand to wipe them away.

“We’ve got a second chance to be free,” Steve said, mimicking Billy’s movements on his own face.

_Free to be whoever we want to be._

-:-

They ended up falling asleep in each other’s arms.

It was the most comfortable either of them had ever been in that cell. Billy was relishing the warmth of Steve’s body as he curled against him, the contact trapping the heat between them. Billy felt _warm _for the first time in a long time – certainly the first time since his car had crashed outside that warehouse and he’d found himself catapulted into a world of other dimensions.

He hadn’t realised he’d fallen asleep until he woke up, a numb feeling in his arm. He glanced over to where Steve’s head was resting on his bicep, quite effectively cutting off circulation to the rest of his arm. He realised he was doing something similar to Steve, his chest resting on Steve’s wrist and hand. Steve’s other arm was thrown over Billy, his hand resting on his shoulder.

Billy eased up the pressure on the hand underneath him, flexing what little of the arm under Steve’s head he could move in an attempt to restore proper circulation to his hand. He didn’t quite have the heart to wake Steve – not when, beneath the bruises, he looked more peaceful than anyone who’d spent almost twenty-four hours being interrogated by psychotic Russians had any right to be. However, either due to Billy’s exercises or the sudden relief of pressure from his hand, Steve made a soft noise, his eyes slowly fluttering open.

Confusion clouded them for a second as he took in his surroundings, taking in the fact that he was sleeping on Billy’s arm, chest pressed against Billy’s, looking for all the world like he was _holding _Billy. Billy saw the exact moment that Steve remembered the previous night, a small smile creasing his features.

“Hey,” Billy breathed.

Steve simply hummed in response, his eyes drifting shut again.

“Steve?”

Steve opened his eyes queryingly, his smile never leaving his face.

“Not to spoil your fun, but do you mind moving your head? My arm’s gone numb.”

“What?” Steve glanced down at the arm currently tucked under his ear before realisation shot across his face. “_Oh! _Shit! Sorry!”

He scrambled up into a sitting position, the pressure relieving itself from Billy’s bicep. Billy groaned as the blood rushed back into his lower arm with a tingling feeling that was so intense it was almost painful. He rolled over onto his back and gradually tried to push himself up into a sitting position.

“Sorry,” Steve gasped.

Billy let out a groan as he cradled his arm against his chest, bending it and straightening it at the elbow to help ease the movement.

“It’s fine,” he groaned. “Just… if you’re going to use me as a pillow, maybe _don’t _use my arm next time.”

Billy didn’t mention the crick in his neck at sleeping on his side with his head largely unsupported on a concrete floor. His whole body was aching from the unusual position, but there wasn’t much Steve could do about that, even going forward.

And by the looks of things, Steve was aching himself. And probably with more valid reason. The neck of the shirt slipped to reveal bruises on his chest that had blackened overnight. Billy frowned slightly at them, watching as Steve settled himself into the most comfortable position he could find against the wall.

“So are we going to talk about yesterday?” Billy asked once the tingling in his fingers had subsided to a manageable level.

Steve looked surprised at the question, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, we probably… we probably should…” He looked over at Billy, a cautiously guarded optimism in his smile. “Where did _that _come from?”

“Where did _what _come from?”

“That kiss,” Steve said. “Felt like it came out of _nowhere_.”

This… wasn’t _quite _what Billy had meant by ‘talking about yesterday’. _He _was concerned with the fact that Steve had gone missing for a day after a moment of unnecessary self-sacrifice and arguable martyrdom, but _Steve_, of course, in all his wisdom, wanted to talk about _the kiss._

Well, at least Billy wasn’t alone in defaulting to avoidance strategies.

“I told you,” Billy decided to indulge Steve’s avoidance for the time being. “I felt everything that happened in the Other Way Down-”

“You’re doing that on purpose, now, aren’t you?”

Billy rolled his eyes as he continued. “It wasn’t _made up._” He stressed. “Like… those _feelings _weren’t fake, they were _me._”

Steve raised his eyebrows, an infuriating smirk on his lips. “And those feelings _were?_”

“None of your business,” Billy snapped, giving Steve a glare with no real heat behind it. Avoidance time was over.

“You see,” Steve said smugly, his grin widening. “I think they _are _my business now. Because they’re about _me. _And they prompted you to _kiss _me. And the last time I got kissed by someone who didn’t tell me their real feelings for-”

“Okay, _Pretty Boy, _why did _you _kiss _me?_” Billy cut him off.

Steve shrugged, that infuriating smirk widening. “Don’t really know,” he shrugged, the jest clearly evident in his voice. “I felt like shit, and… you were right there…”

The smirk took on a slightly guilty edge as he looked up at Billy’s face, the picture of mock outrage.

“I was _there?_” Billy snapped, playing along. “You’re telling me you kissed me because I was _there?_”

“Well, it wasn’t _just _that,” Steve’s irritating, infuriating smirk became triumphant. “You were _there, _you were taking _care _of me, I was _upset…_”

Billy huffed indignantly. “Fuck you, Harrington.”

“I normally buy girls dinner first, but if you just want to skip straight to dessert…”

He grinned over at Billy, cocking his head slightly as he raised his eyebrows. Billy quietly seethed, suddenly feeling a lot less guilty for the amount of shit he’d given Steve at school.

_The little shit had, quite frankly, earned it._

“You’re lucky your face is already messed up,” Billy scowled. “Otherwise I’d be punching it in right now.”

Steve’s grin widened victoriously, but Billy wasn’t about to let him win _quite _yet.

“_Speaking of,_” Billy cut through, “let’s _talk _about the state you’re in.”

The smile vanished and Steve immediately looked guarded, his eyes falling to the floor.

“It’s fine,” he said, causing Billy to snort derisively.

“It’s _not _fine,” Billy said. “You were a fucking _mess _when they brought you back last night. So are you going to tell me what happened, or am I going to have to guess?”

Steve ran a hand through his hair out of habit. “_Jesus, _Billy, what’s there to tell? They asked me questions I didn’t know the answer to, so they beat the shit out of me. You know, the _usual._”

Billy glared at Steve, but unlike before, there was no humour behind it. “_Steve,_” he said softly.

“Billy, I _really _don’t want to talk about it, alright?” Steve snapped, throwing his hands up in the air. “Can we just drop it?”

“_No!_” Billy snapped back. “Steve, you just _let _them take you. You didn’t even put up a fucking _fight. _I was happy to stop them-”

“No, you were happy to have a bullet put through your head,” Steve pointed out. “You wouldn’t have stopped them, you’d have just gotten yourself killed.”

“_Yeah, _and instead I had to come back here on my own!” Billy snapped. “I had _no idea _what had happened to you, I didn’t know if they were ever going to bring you back, I didn’t know if you were alive or dead-”

“Wow, Billy, I didn’t know you _cared _so much,” Steve said in a vain attempt at humour.

Billy opened his mouth incredulously, wanting to retort, but the words that were dancing on the tip of his tongue evaporated. He pushed himself to his feet, standing up with his back to Steve. He pushed his hands through his hair, tugging at the knots that were tangling around his fingers.

“_Jesus…_” Billy breathed, turning to face him. “Is _that _what you want to hear? Fine. I _care _about you. I _care _about you, I _like _having you around, and I would prefer it if you _didn’t _get yourself killed.”

That infuriating smirk was back on Steve’s face at Billy’s annoyed outburst, but it was a shadow of what it had been moments ago, underlain with genuine affection.

“I don’t want you to die,” Billy snapped. “And I’ve watched that nearly happen a couple of times now, so for the love of God, _try _to actually look after yourself for five minutes, will you?”

Steve was clearly trying to look sincere, but the _maddeningly triumphant_ smile was still there as he nodded. “Okay.”

“Well – _good!_” Billy snapped, not entirely sure what to do with this annoyance in the face of Steve’s admission. He walked back to the wall next to Steve – well, he _stomped _– and sat down with far more force than necessary. The annoyance hadn’t quite left him, but he managed to resist the impulse to just _shove _Steve for the sole purpose of having something to do with his hands. Instead, he contented himself with simply turning his head away to glare at a patch of dirt on the floor on the other side of the cell from Steve.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, trying for a smile. “It’s just… I meant what I said last night. This whole… _situation… _it’s been so much easier having you around. I didn’t want to lose _you, _either.”

The annoyance that was slowly leaving Billy started to leave him much faster.

“I care about you and like having you around too,” Steve continued, still looking at him. “And I _also _would prefer it if you didn’t get yourself killed.”

Billy didn’t look around at Steve but couldn’t stop the small smile that settled on his lips.

“And – all jokes aside, no shit – I _also _meant the part about how what happened felt more right than anything else has in a long time.”

“_Ever_,” Billy corrected softly, before he could stop himself.

“What?”

“You said ‘ever’ last night,” Billy said, turning his head around towards Steve but not looking up at him. “Not ‘in a long time’.”

“Billy,” Steve said, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Billy looked up with a smirk to rival Steve’s own. Steve was glaring at him, but the effect was undermined by the smile that was playing around his lips that were inches from his own.

“Yeah?” Billy grinned.

“Just take the fucking compliment.”

-:-

Things calmed down in Hawkins High for a little while after Dustin returned to school. Jonathan spoke to Robin, who offered to drive Dustin to school in the mornings. She’d just got a job at Family Video, though, which meant that she wasn’t able to do the same in the afternoons, leaving Jonathan and Nancy to pick up the slack. Not that either minded, the main appeal of Robin’s driving being a regular chance to chat to someone he’d opened up to before.

He wasn’t himself, entirely. He _certainly _wasn’t the strange, annoyingly eager child she’d met in Scoops Ahoy, but there were some days that were better than others. She didn’t push him to talk about Steve, instead leaving him to dictate the topic of conversation. Sometimes it was whatever was on the radio, sometimes it was Robin’s job, sometimes it was the _complete absence of an AV club in Hawkins High, what was he supposed to do?_

Robin started to pick up on Dustin’s good days and bad days. _God _knows she’d had her fair share of bad days – days where her mom would try to bring her something to eat as she lay in bed under the blankets. It wasn’t so much the case that she was _upset, _but rather, just completely drained. The curtains would stay closed, the food would remain untouched, she’d just lie there, staring at the wall, or the ceiling, or the pillow, trying not to think about Russians, or ice cream, or just how stupid that _stupid fucking hat _looked on gravity-defying brown hair…

Dustin’s bad days didn’t tend to consist of lying in bed anymore, though Robin suspected that was more due to the fact that his mother wouldn’t let him. As far as Robin was aware, Dustin had been grounded until the end of the month while he caught up on the work that he’d missed from skipping school. So instead, Robin read Dustin’s good days as the days where he led the conversation, and the less good days as the days where he let her talk. She’d often just fill the silence with annoyed rants about her new boss, Keith – and there were _plenty _of rants to be had on that subject. The _bad _days, however, were the days when he wouldn’t talk at all, leaning against the glass window and watching the world go by. On those days, his demeanour would be as closed off as it was possible to be, and so Robin didn’t try to force him to talk. She’d turn the radio station over to something playing music and start humming along.

She didn’t know if it was helping, but as time went on, the bad days became less frequent.

It came as a surprise to everyone when Halloween seemed to pop up out of nowhere with the promise of the annual party at Tina’s.

Nancy and Jonathan weren’t entirely sure quite how they’d ended up agreeing to go. Jonathan avoided parties on principle, and Nancy especially had understandably gone off Halloween following the previous year, but a particularly vicious interaction involving Connor Morrison driving both Nancy and Robin completely insane before an English lesson had somehow riled them both up into agreeing to go together, if only to shove it (and possibly a bowl of punch) into Morrison’s face.

Jonathan had, rather predictably, opted for what was arguably his lowest-effort costume to date. A plain black t-shirt and jeans somehow gave him the ability to claim that he was a T Bird from _Grease_. Will disagreed with this on principle.

Nancy had made slightly more effort with hers. She’d found a cheap pink bomber jacket in a thrift store and coupled that with an old scarf around her neck, which gave her something that passed as a costume.

They knocked on Robin’s door to find her in a costume that was somewhere in between Jonathan’s and Nancy’s level of effort. She was wearing all black and had a headband with animal ears on that looked like she’d borrowed it from someone ten years younger. It turned out she’d borrowed it from Erica Sinclair in exchange for letting her rent an R-rated horror film for the evening. Robin had reasoned that if she was going to give Erica Sinclair nightmares, she’d already done so by accidentally roping her in to help them break into a top-secret Russian base.

“I don’t understand how _I’m _the designated driver,” Jonathan moaned as they cruised down the road. “I hate parties.”

“If I’m going to spend the evening dealing with Connor Morrison being an asshole all night,” Robin pointed out from the back seat, “I’m _not _doing it sober.”

Nancy said nothing, looking out the window.

“I still don’t understand why we’re going to this stupid party, anyway,” Jonathan pointed out. “Neither of you actually _want _to go. And you’re not exactly the type of people to give enough of a damn about what anyone else thinks of you to let this stuff get to you like this.”

“You didn’t hear him,” Nancy snapped. “He was being _such _a douchebag.”

“We’re going for _one _drink,” Robin said. “Show our faces, show that we’re not…”

She trailed off, leaving Jonathan to wonder exactly what Connor Morrison had said.

“Look,” she said. “We’ll spend, like, a half hour at the stupid party. Then I’ll break you into Family Video, you can pick whatever movie you want, and you guys can have a cute romantic film night over _The Exorcist _or something back at your place. Does that sound like a plan?”

Jonathan smiled to himself. “Sounds like a nice night,” he said.

He caught Nancy glancing over at him, a similar smile on her face. They turned into the road and immediately saw _which _house was playing host to most of the juniors and seniors that evening.

The party was in full swing as Robin got out of the car, a strong smell of something that was _definitely _not just cigarette smoke coming from a group of people smoking and talking outside the house. The first casualty of the night was already emptying his stomach into a bush, his Terminator costume suddenly much less convincing by the stains on his jeans and t-shirt.

Nancy didn’t immediately get out of the car, sitting in the front seat of the car with a strange look on her face. Jonathan watched her, knowing exactly what was on her mind – the reason he’d been so hesitant to come along to the party in the first place. He didn’t want her to force herself to relive the night where she’d broken up with her now-dead ex-boyfriend, only to have no memory of it the following day. The most she could remember about that night was the echo of her voice repeating the word _“bullshit” _over and over again.

“It’s okay, you know,” Jonathan said. “It’s okay, we don’t have to do this, we can just go home.”

“No,” she said, seemingly coming back to herself. “No, it’s okay, I want to.”

Jonathan looked at her sceptically.

“Just…” she looked at him with a strained smile. “Maybe keep me away from the punch.”

She finally exited the car, following Robin inside. One of the smokers recognised them and gave them a wave. The vomiting Terminator straightened up for all of a second as they passed, looking wistfully at the house before being overcome once again, turning and retching into the bush, leaving it very much in doubt as to whether he would be back.

Robin had found them a couple of beers as they walked into the house, the overcrowded room guaranteed to cause no end of trouble for Tina at the end of the night. Music was blaring loudly through the room, there was a keg of beer in the kitchen that someone had already seemingly spilled all over the floor, and there was a drunk junior dancing on the coffee table which did not look like it was built to take the weight of a seventeen year old girl.

All in all, Jonathan would have put money on Tina not being allowed out again until Thanksgiving at the earliest.

“This is completely ridiculous,” Robin commented dryly. “I’ve _never _understood what people see in nights like these.”

“Drinking other people’s booze and taking other people’s drugs?” Nancy suggested.

Robin tilted her head in concession.

“You see,” Jonathan said. “There’s one big secret to parties like this.”

Robin looked at him curiously while Nancy rolled her eyes, having heard Jonathan’s views on parties plenty of times before.

“_Everyone’s _having a terrible time,” Jonathan pointed out, tilting his beer at her. “They’re all just pretending that they’re not so that they seem cool. So just embrace the awfulness of it all and pray that they’ve at least got some decent music.”

Nancy snorted. “You mean, like _The Clash?_”

Jonathan shot her a withering look. “They could stick on some Bowie.”

Robin nodded her head at that. “I could go for some Bowie. _Ooh – _or maybe some Queen.”

Nancy grinned at that, her amusement at their fantasy playlist heightening as _Jessie’s Girl_ started playing, causing Jonathan to groan.

“Embrace the awfulness,” Robin said, smirking at them as she raised her beer can up, tapping it against both of theirs –

“Oh, _hey _there, Princess!”

The sing-song voice caused the smile to slip from Nancy’s face, refusing to turn around to acknowledge Carol Perkins as she sidled up to them, a grin that contained all the warmth and good feeling as a Demogorgon settled on her face.

“What are we drinking to?” she smiled as she settled next to them. “A repeat performance of last year? You _know _the punch is over there, right?”

She nodded towards the kitchen, looking at Nancy expectantly. Nancy finally looked back at her, her eyes hard.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Nancy said. “I thought you were at college?”

Carol gave a small laugh that sounded as fake as her smile. “Figured I’d come home for the week. Tommy and I _love _spending Halloween together.”

Nancy took a sip of beer from the can, meeting Robin’s eyes. Robin looked at her with a burning fire in her eyes, as though she would have quite happily strangled Carol without a second thought at just the wrong word.

“I thought Tommy got into University of Indianapolis?” Jonathan said, sounding confused.

Carol’s eyes seemed to sparkle as she turned her sinister grin towards him. “He did. But he took a gap year. You know, after _everything._”

Nancy and Jonathan caught each other’s eyes, giving each other mirroring looks of confusion. The glance couldn’t have lasted longer than a second, but Carol caught it, giving another high laugh.

“Don’t look so _shocked,_” she said. “A few people in our year did that. I’d say I was surprised you didn’t _know, _but – well, you always _were _so caught up in your own little world, Princess.”

“What do you _want, _Carol?” Robin interrupted.

Carol turned to Robin, looking over her appraisingly.

“Nothing,” she smirked. “Just wanted to say hi.”

“Well, you’ve said it,” Jonathan snapped. “I suggest you go.”

“Wow, so _unfriendly, _Byers.”

The introduction of a new voice saw Tommy Hagan sidling towards them, a lit cigarette between his teeth as he slung an arm around Carol’s shoulders.

“You know, you need to work on your social skills,” Tommy grinned as he offered the cigarette to Carol, flagrantly ignoring the general understanding of ‘no smoking in the house’. Carol took it, blowing a cloud of smoke over Jonathan, smirking as he winced.

“Carol was just telling us about how you’ve taken a year out,” Nancy said, her eyes two pinpricks of ice. “I’m sure Steve would have been _touched _by the gesture.”

The sarcasm that laced her voice was nothing compared to the barb of Steve’s name, escalating the conversation out of the abstract concept of Starcourt and into specifics. Tommy’s brow creased a fraction at the name, before it smoothed into a smile that didn’t touch his eyes either in a sarcastic smirk or genuine emotion. He plucked the cigarette from Carol’s hands, taking a long drag before exhaling towards the ceiling.

“Wasn’t just _Steve_ who died, Princess,” he pointed out in a monotone. “There was Heather, and, of course, Billy. Or do they not _matter _to you?”

Jonathan glanced cautiously over at Nancy, giving her a warning look, mentally imploring her not to rise to the bait. He could see the storm brewing behind her eyes, her last vestiges of restraint cracking.

“Of _course _they matter,” Nancy said, her back straightening defensively.

“Could have fooled _me,_” Tommy smirked, but there was no humour in his eyes. All that was there was unbridled anger.

The last semblance of restraint that Nancy possessed snapped. “No, _you _don’t get to do that,” she snarled, and suddenly several people around them started to watch. “You have _no idea_ what happened-”

“Oh, that’s _right, _you were _there!_” Carol’s sing-song voice was back. “And _somehow, _you’ve managed to get out of telling _anyone _what actually happened, haven’t you?”

Nancy opened her mouth to retort as Jonathan put a hand on her arm.

“Nancy, let’s just go-”

“_Don’t _start up with that _bullshit_ again!” Nancy hissed. “You never cared about Steve, or Billy, or Heather beyond what they could offer to help you to _shit _all over everyone else-”

She was broken off by a crack, a sting in her cheek as she fell sideways into Jonathan. Several people around let out shouts of approval, hoping for the situation to degenerate into a fight. Tommy melted away, laughing as he stumbled outside, cigarette hanging from his fingers. Jonathan wrapped his arms around Nancy, shifting her sideways as he tried to put himself between her and Carol.

“You don’t _know _me,” Carol laughed bitterly, her hand still raised from the slap. “Don’t pretend like you _do, _Princess.”

Jonathan started to push Nancy away from Carol, ignoring the burning look in her eyes.

“Come on, Nancy, let’s go,” he muttered.

She gave Carol a filthy look over his shoulder before turning and starting to walk towards the door. They made it about halfway down the path before a shout from the doorway caught their attention.

“You ruined his life, you know!”

Nancy broke away from Jonathan, pulling her arm out of his grip, taking a few steps back towards Carol.

“_Excuse me?_” Nancy snarled incredulously.

Carol’s eyes hardened, the smile never leaving her face. “You stand there, saying how _awful _we were to him, how _you’re the only one who could possibly be upset about him, _but the truth is you ruined his life. You lied to him for a _year_ about everything, and then, when you finally _did _end up breaking his heart, you left him with no friends, no prospects, _nothing_.”

“Nancy, for God’s sake, let’s just _go,_” Jonathan called.

Robin emerged from the doorway, putting a hand on Carol’s shoulder.

“Just leave it out, okay,” she hissed. “We’re _going_.”

She walked past where Carol stood to where Nancy was, pulling on her arm. Nancy glared at Carol for another second, fighting back the retorts that danced on the tip of her tongue. She finally conceded, relaxing her hand into Robin’s grip as she took another step down the path. Her eyes remained locked on Carol for as long as she could as she was led back towards Jonathan’s car.

“Oh, by the way,” Carol called out, snagging her attention.

Both Robin and Nancy turned around to look at Carol, who was watching Nancy expectantly.

“_What?_” snapped Nancy, taking a step up the path towards Carol.

“_Happy Halloween!_”

The shout didn’t come from Carol, but rather a voice to her left. Nancy wheeled around to face it, catching the briefest glimpse of a werewolf mask before a wave of red splashed over her. The smell of rotting meat covered her as she let out an involuntary gasp, the red liquid dripping down over her.

Jonathan sprinted over to Nancy as she stood there, reeling from the shock of it all. She looked up to see the werewolf mask peeled away to reveal Tommy, who was laughing, a slightly hysterical edge to his cackles at the audacity of the prank. He wasn’t the only one – Carol stood with a slightly shocked grin on her face, while a few others let out cheers at the dramatic twist the evening had taken. The plastic bucket that had contained what Nancy was certain was animal blood of some sort fell to the floor as Tommy stepped back, that adrenaline-fuelled laughter filling her ears.

Nancy saw red. At least, _more _red.

“You _asshole!_”

She flung herself towards him, shoving him backwards with both hands. He stumbled back, the laughter still on his face.

“You fucking _coward, _Hagan!” she snarled as he stepped away.

The laughter went from his face, the adrenaline and the emotion still there.

“Oh, now _I’m _the coward?” Tommy yelled back. “_You _were the one who couldn’t even sit through a fucking _speech _for Steve! Couldn’t even fucking _look _at what you’d done! Come on, just fucking _own up _to it!”

“_Fuck you, Tommy!_”

“_You’re _the fucking coward, Princess, you just _left them there to die!_ You got what you wanted, you got out, and they _didn’t!_ You just ran away and left them there, didn’t you? _Didn’t you?_”

“Hey, that’s enough,” Jonathan cut in, stepping forward and pushing the tips of his fingers against Tommy’s shoulder.

“Oh, I almost forgot, _you _were there _too, _Byers, weren’t you?” Tommy laughed humourlessly. “What happened? Did you take the girl and run – _again?_ Leave poor old Stevie-boy to pick up the pieces?”

“I _said _that’s enough!” Jonathan injected a little more finality into his voice as he glared at Tommy, staring him down.

“My two best friends are _dead, _Byers!” Tommy yelled. “I think I have a fucking _right _to know what happened! Was it you two who left him? Or was it your mom’s new boyfriend?”

Jonathan felt his stomach clench uncomfortably, his own rage bubbling just below the surface. He was trying to _defuse _the situation, not make it worse. He just needed to get Nancy and Robin home.

“God, she _really_ knows how to pick them, doesn’t she?” Tommy continued. “First your fucking _loser_ of a father, then that fucking _Radio Shack _worker – who’s _also dead, _let’s add – and now she’s hooking up with that pathetic excuse for a police chief? _Jesus Christ,_ Byers, no wonder your family’s so fucked up.”

Jonathan didn’t realise he was shaking with anger until he pushed Tommy away. It took all his remaining self-control to grit his teeth.

“We’re _done _here,” Jonathan said coldly. “Come on, Nancy, let’s get you home.”

He turned to walk away.

“I bet you’re _real _glad Steve’s out of the picture now, Byers!” Tommy yelled. “No more pining after your girlfriend. You get to keep her all to yourself. No more having to pretend like you give a shit about him to appease your own fucking _guilt _about stealing his girl!”

Jonathan froze, closing his eyes.

_Take a deep breath and count to ten…_

“Everyone here fucking _knows _it!” Tommy’s voice cut through Jonathan’s calming attempts. “Everyone _knows _how much better things must be for you. No wonder you guys were okay with leaving him in that place!”

_One… two… three… four…_

“I reckon you’re both glad that he’s dead!”

_Screw it._

Jonathan spun around, swinging a punch at Tommy. His fist caught Tommy square in the nose. Jonathan felt cartilage break under his fist, watching as blood spurted over his face. He took a grim satisfaction as Tommy collapsed backwards into the grass as several of the onlookers gasped.

Normally, Tommy would have posed a fight for Jonathan, but a significant difference in intoxication levels, coupled with a suspicion that cigarettes were not _all _Tommy had smoked that night, left Jonathan standing over Tommy, his heart racing. Carol came rushing over as Jonathan heard pounding in his ears.

“You stay the _hell _away from Nancy,” he said breathlessly, his voice low. The adrenaline from the punch was leaving him fast and he took a step back. He looked over to where Nancy was, currently having the pink jacket pulled off by Robin in an attempt to make her more comfortable.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

-:-

They stumbled back through the doorway of Jonathan’s house to find Hopper and Joyce sat on the couch together, a terrible movie playing. Joyce glanced up at the sound of the door opening, a smile on her face that quickly morphed into an expression of horror at the sight of Nancy, looking shellshocked.

“What happened?” Joyce asked as Jonathan and Robin started to guide her towards the bathroom.

“_Tommy Hagan _happened,” Robin snapped.

Hopper was on his feet in an instant, fire burning in his eyes.

“Tommy Hagan?” he echoed. “_He _did this?”

Jonathan took a deep breath, trying to rein in his anger. For once, Hopper had done nothing to deserve it, but he was still riled up. Frankly, he was surprised he’d managed to make it home without trying to run anyone off the road.

“Yeah,” he snapped. “But it’s between us and him.”

Hopper snorted. “Like _hell _it is!”

“Hopper, we’ll handle it. This isn’t some _Upside Down_ shit-”

“You _know _he’s done this before, right?” Hopper pointed out. “Threw a bucket of blood over Winnie Kline on her doorstep.”

Jonathan closed his eyes, turning his head to one side. “Great,” he muttered. “That’s just _great. _Nancy’s now in the same category as _Winnie Kline._”

Joyce froze at the expression on Jonathan’s face. It had been an extremely long time since she’d seen him look like that.

“Just…” Jonathan said. “Just give it tonight. Nancy’s going to have _enough _to deal with tomorrow at school without being the person who broke up the Halloween party.”

He followed Robin and Nancy into the bathroom to find Robin wiping away the worst of the blood from Nancy’s face with a washcloth.

“Hey, Jonathan,” Robin said, sounding incredibly business-like. She had a problem and she was _going _to fix it. “Go and get a set of clean clothes for Nancy.”

There was far too much sense in that to ignore. He walked into his room, digging out a clean t-shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do about the lack of underwear, but hoped Nancy would be alright in what she was wearing for the time being. He could run her over to hers before school and give her a chance to change. He piled the clothes up before turning to find his mom watching him from the doorway.

“Are you okay?” she asked gently.

“I’m _fine, _mom,” he said shortly – _far _too shortly for it to be convincing.

“No, you’re not-”

“_I’m _not the one who was doused in a bucket of blood,” Jonathan breezed past her with an air of finality. He’d deal with his own anger later. Right now, he had other problems.

He knocked softly on the bathroom door to hear Robin’s voice from inside.

“Come in,” she said.

He pushed the door open before stopping in his tracks. Nancy was leaning against the sink, her arms wrapped around Robin, her head buried in Robin’s shoulder.

“I know,” Robin was muttering quietly to her, seemingly uncaring about the blood that was getting from Nancy’s hair onto her neck and shoulder. “I know.”

Robin peeled away from Nancy to let Jonathan take over. She gave him a strange look as she left, closing the door with a click behind her.

Jonathan pulled her into a hug, not caring too much about the tacky feeling of blood matting her hair into clumps as she leant against him. He started methodically easing her out of the t-shirt she was wearing, discarding it onto the floor. He then picked up the washcloth and started to wipe away at the rest of the blood on her face – Robin had got the worst of it off, but there was still some red around her hairline that wouldn’t seem to budge.

“That’s what they were saying,” Nancy muttered, not looking at him.

“Hm?”

“That’s… That’s what Connor Morrison was saying to me…”

Her voice was fragile, shaking slightly. Barely repressed sobs were causing soft tremors in her, any intake of breath a sniff.

“He said I didn’t _care…_” the first tears slipped down her face. “He said that we were going to be _celebrating _tonight. Our _one-year anniversary. _That it was an _insult _to him. That I never cared about him at all, but I _did._”

She looked up at him earnestly, _begging _for Jonathan to understand.

“All of these _people _– Tommy, his dad, they’re all acting like he was _perfect_, like they all cared _so much _about him when he was alive, but they _didn’t!_ His dad – his _dad – _standing up and saying that he’s going to _‘turn the town around for him…’_”

She broke off, anger screwing up her face as tears spilled from her eyes.

“His dad didn’t even _know _him! They threw this _bullshit _funeral for him in a goddamn fucking _church, _and then he got up and started saying how Steve was _‘the best son he could have asked for’, _but he never knew, he _never knew-_”

Her voice cracked as she bowed her head, her hands slamming on the sink.

“_None of them ever fucking knew what he was!_” she screamed. “They don’t _get_ to be upset, they don’t _get _to do this, because it’s all bullshit, because if they were going to do this, why couldn’t they have done it when he was _alive?_ Why did they all have to _shit _all over his life like that and then – now that he’s _gone…_”

She broke down, falling against Jonathan’s chest.

“I don’t know if I loved him, but I didn’t want him to _go…_” she sobbed. “How could he-”

She broke off, a choked sob escaping her as Jonathan wrapped her arms around her, trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling in his gut.

His own feelings towards Steve were… _had been_ complicated. After that strange November night two years ago, he’d found himself in the strange position of being asked for forgiveness by someone who had just saved his life. A small part of him was sceptical about the grand gesture of the apology, but when the friendship started to manifest itself in smaller ways – from a camera given to him by Nancy that Jonathan _knew _no teenager would have bought for someone else unless they were trying to make amends for something, through to attempts to invite him to various parties with them, including a highly-coveted invitation amongst his peers to a Spring Break holiday at Steve’s parents’ lake house.

However, following Steve’s breakup with Nancy, there had been a period where Steve had been _extremely _cold towards him. He’d largely been amicable to Nancy, but following an appearance at school immediately after his fight with Billy, where it became painfully apparent to everyone just how far _King Steve_ had fallen, he had become cold, _isolated_. Things had gradually eased, the tension finally breaking, but things had never quite settled into something comfortable between them. Jonathan _knew _Nancy’s feelings towards Steve were platonic, and he trusted her around Steve, but it hadn’t been easy to find that trust of Steve around Nancy – not when it had been so blatantly obvious that he was still in love with her.

But then things had settled. Steve had started to move on, throwing himself into his final semester at school to drag his grades up from the crucial line between _extremely bad _and merely _bad. _It hadn’t been enough to get him into college, but enough that he’d managed to graduate in the bottom tenth percentile of his class as opposed to the bottom fifth. It had been enough to get him a job at Scoops Ahoy after his dad had all but cut him off.

And then the fourth of July had happened, and with it came a lot more complications.

There had been nights when he’d been cramped on the floor of Hopper’s cabin where he’d found himself infuriated at the _situation _they were in – he couldn’t bring himself to be angry at Steve, not after finding out he’d been tortured, not after he’d sacrificed his _life _to help Hopper close the Gate – so it was the _situation _that he was angry at. The _situation _where his brother was being hunted by Communists for information after his name had come up, placed in the crosshairs by a man now dead.

A man who had died trying to save them all.

Still, he couldn’t help but agree with Nancy as she pressed her blood-stained locks against his shoulder again, tears seeping into his shoulder as she sobbed. He had no words of comfort as she finally voiced the real reason – the _only _reason – he truly held any anger towards Steve.

“How could he _leave _us like that?”

Jonathan wrapped his arms tightly around her shoulders. He pulled her close, letting her arms finally tighten around him before he coaxed her into the shower to wash the worst of the blood off. He bent down, picking up the discarded clothes as the water started to run behind the shower curtain.

He walked into his room, closing the door behind him, shutting out his mom, Hopper and Robin. Wordlessly, he grabbed a pillow and buried his face into it. He opened his mouth into a silent scream, letting his lips and tongue form all the curses that he would never put a voice to. Words he longed to fling at Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins, things he wished he could tell Nancy, rage that he would never admit to feeling in his darkest dreams. He screamed it out in complete silence, his lungs gasping for air as though the screams were audible, the tears as real as they could be. But they were only _felt_, never heard.

He’d seen what rage could do to a man if left unchecked. He would _not _become like his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been a little on the fence about the Hawkins part of this chapter - I've been wanting to explore Jonathan and Nancy's reaction to everything for a little while, I've been hinting at it for a while that Nancy was less than okay with everything, and this seemed like a decent catalyst. I wouldn't normally have included it QUITE so close to bringing Dustin vs. Max to a head, because it's quite similar in theme and feel etc and does feel a bit repetitive, but there wasn't really anywhere else better to put it. That said, the thread of Tommy going full Carrie bully on everyone has always felt a little risky and I've always been a bit on the fence about including it in an already crowded narrative. However, it works as a neat little catalyst to the plot arc that's going to kick off next chapter in Hawkins - we might ACTUALLY start to get somewhere...
> 
> Also, I was feeling that the tone was FAR too cheerful after our two colossal idiots finally opened up to each other and admitted that they cared about each other to simply leave it there. It needed some doom and gloom and general misery after that.


	29. Part 3 Chapter 8: Call It A Birthday Treat

“I _told _you to _find them!_”

Hopper wasn’t entirely sure quite _how _he’d ended up in the position where he was standing in the Mayor’s office opposite an irate, pacing Paul Harrington. As far as he was concerned, he’d done a good job. Tommy Hagan was in custody – against Hopper’s better judgement, he’d decided to wait at Tommy’s house to arrest him rather than going to the party. That said, when the car had rolled into the driveway a little after five in the morning, Hopper had also had grounds for driving under the influence and possession of illegal substances after a bag of something that was _not _paracetamol and tobacco had been sitting in the glove compartment. So when he’d called the Mayor’s office at nine o’clock that morning to confirm that he’d arrested the person responsible for Winnie Kline’s assault, he would have been lying if he’d said that he hadn’t hoped for this to be considered _good _news.

Then again, as far as Paul Harrington seemed to be concerned, _any _news was bad news if it came from Hopper.

“The _incompetence _of your department is frankly _astounding,_ Hopper,” Harrington snapped. “I told you to find the person who was doing this. I would have thought that the implication that I wanted them found _before _they did it again was clear.”

“I _told _you,” Hopper huffed. “The guy was a ghost. We weren’t going to catch him unless he showed up again.”

“And in the meantime, there’s been another assault!” Harrington raged. “Your responsibility to this town is to keep the people _safe. _You’ve managed to fail spectacularly on just about every single front it’s possible to fail on. And _more _than that, you’ve been outright dismissive of the severity of the assaults on Winnie Kline and Nancy Wheeler.”

“Who said I was _dismissive?_” Hopper snapped back.

Harrington looked at him incredulously. “I’m pretty sure your exact words were ‘it’s _just _a bucket of blood.’ As though that _wasn’t _traumatic enough to warrant your fullest attention.”

“What did you expect-”

“I _told _you to find them, Chief Hopper,” Harrington said icily. “It is one of the _only _things I have asked you to do.”

“And I _did _find him-”

“_Down to luck,_” Harrington cut him off. “You _happened _to be in the same house as the girl’s boyfriend at the time. You _happened _to see the aftermath of it. You got _lucky, _Chief Hopper, don’t forget that.”

Hopper glared at Harrington, seething.

“Do you know _why _the kid did that, Chief Hopper?” Harrington snapped, sitting down in the desk chair, glaring up at him. Hopper noticed the conspicuous absence of an appropriately placed chair on _his _side of the desk.

“I _know _Thomas Hagan,” Harrington explained. “He’s a piece of work, but I _know _him. He did that because he was looking for some form of _justice. _He doesn’t have faith that there will _be _any for the people responsible, so he took matters into his own hands. He doesn’t have faith that _you _will give him any. The people of this town are losing faith in _you._ I’d say that _I _was losing faith in you, but since I’m being frank, I’m not sure I ever _had _any faith in you to begin with. So tell me, Chief Hopper, why shouldn’t I get rid of you and bring in someone that I _do _have faith in?”

Hopper found himself biting back a thousand retorts that would quite easily get him fired, if not simply arrested.

“It’s not a rhetorical question,” Harrington said, looking at him expectantly.

Hopper forced a look that _might _have passed as one of respect. “You don’t seem to know what you’re asking for. You’re asking for miracles and hauling my ass over here to lecture me when I deliver anything _less._ The world doesn’t work in the idealised way that it may have done in your corporate little law firm. I’m doing the _best that I can,_ the best _anyone _can, but sometimes, _money _isn’t enough to fix all your problems. And I think _you _need to understand that.”

Harrington glared at him coldly. “You’re walking on very thin ice, Chief Hopper.”

-:-

The days went by far more quickly than either Steve or Billy realised. Steve was privately glad that Billy had insisted on keeping track of the days – not that he’d ever admit it – because it bowled him over when he came to the realisation that they’d been in Russia for two months.

“Huh,” he commented one night as they ended up back together in their cell. At least, if a non-committal noise could be considered a comment.

Billy was already stretched out on his back, his eyes closed, trying to get into a comfortable position he could sleep in. He’d become oddly accustomed to the feeling of Steve lying either next to him or, in some cases, _on _him. In the meantime, though, he folded his hands under the back of his head, waiting for Steve to stop examining the wall.

“What’s up?” Billy asked.

“I’m nineteen,” Steve said simply, looking at the wall.

Billy opened his eyes, frowning slightly at Steve. “When’s your birthday?”

“September 5th,” Steve explained. “And I ended up in the Upside Down on the fourth of July. Which means that even if we were only in the Upside Down for, like, a _day, _we’d be in September now. The earliest it could be would be September 9th, even disregarding the… _however_ many days I spent here before you showed up, so yeah. I think I’m nineteen.”

He didn’t look at Billy at all, a strange feeling settling over him. He _knew _he hadn’t just been in the Upside Down for a day, he _knew _that there was no possible way it was September 9th, that his nineteenth birthday must have been a while ago, but it felt _strange _having a sense of certainty that in amongst all the chaos that had been his life since July, his birthday had been and gone without his knowledge.

Billy hummed. “Happy birthday, then, I guess.”

Steve turned and offered Billy a small, amused smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Thanks,” he muttered, coming to settle himself on the floor next to Billy.

Billy, while not necessarily the best at _expressing _his own, did pride himself on _picking up _on other people’s feelings. And it was fair to say that spending two months locked up in a Russian facility with only Steve for company had definitely taught him a lot about the person currently resting on the floor beside him.

“You okay?” Billy asked, clocking the melancholy look Steve kept giving the wall. He didn’t bother asking as he peeled one of his hands out from under his head, stretching his arm out to gently run his fingers through Steve’s hair. Steve leaned into the touch, accepting the gesture as a welcome towards Billy’s side. He rolled over sideways, giving Billy scope to wrap his arm around Steve’s shoulders, pulling Steve’s head onto his chest.

“I don’t really know,” Steve said at last.

Billy gently ran his fingers through Steve’s hair again, settling his hand on the back of Steve’s head, rubbing his thumb backwards and forwards. Steve still felt tense against Billy’s body, his breathing sounding too controlled to be natural.

“It’s just… I had _plans,_” Steve finally elaborated. “Kick my parents out and get stupidly drunk in my house with most of our year.”

Billy couldn’t help the snort of derision. “You can seriously _kick your parents out?_ Don’t they need to be _around _in the first place for you to do that?”

Billy was rewarded by a small kick of Steve’s diaphragm as the beginnings of a laugh escaped him.

“You’ve got a point,” Steve said, and Billy could hear the smile in his voice.

Billy gently ran a hand through the length of Steve’s hair again, smiling down at him.

“It wasn’t _always _like that,” Steve said softly. “When I was younger… my parents were around a lot more. My _dad _was around a lot more. Sure, he had to _work _and stuff in Indianapolis, but mom was around, and he’d try and make it home a few times a week.”

Billy chuckled. “Sounds like _father of the year _material right there.”

Steve didn’t reply, his face turned away from Billy’s. He shifted his head slightly. He didn’t tend to think about the days when he was younger very much. He’d found himself getting bitter about the times when things had been _good _– the times when he hadn’t questioned whether his parents cared about him, the times when he’d just taken for granted that they would be around, that things would be okay. He hadn’t thought about his younger days since Starcourt – since he’d had to question whether or not he was going to make it home – and now, each of those memories, each of those moments of happiness felt like a knife to his heart, twisting.

“We had this cabin in the woods,” Steve said, not registering the tears in his eyes. “We’d go there every few weeks – you know, just for the weekend. It wasn’t _far, _it was a little way out of Hawkins, maybe a _twenty minute… half hour_ drive, but we’d make a point to go there for the weekend every few weeks. I _loved _it there. I’d play hide and seek with my dad. We didn’t have a phone up there, so he couldn’t get called away on business. It was _nice._ Quality time with just me and my mom and my dad. We were a _family._”

Billy looked curiously down at the back of Steve’s head. He could hear the change in his voice, the way it had slipped slightly higher, the way it sounded slightly thicker, the slight shake to his breath.

“What happened?” Billy asked softly.

Steve gave a small huff. “_Life. _Property development. An upgrade.”

Billy waited for Steve to elaborate.

“My parents decided that I was big enough for them to tolerate putting me in a car for more than an hour, so sold the cabin to property developers. They bought their dream holiday home – a lake house upstate – only instead of it being a half hour drive, it took about five times as long to get there, so we went a _lot _less often. It had a _phone, _which meant that my dad’s work life ended up taking over whenever we _did _go there. I was about five or six at the time, so when I just wanted to go swimming with my dad in the lake, he was off being Mister Businessman, and mom would tell me _‘not to interrupt daddy’s work.’ _Eventually the family trips stopped altogether. My dad would spend more and more time in Indianapolis, and the lake house became a fun holiday retreat for him and whatever secretary he was cheating on my mom with for years. We stopped being a family, and I started to be the world’s greatest disappointment.”

Billy found himself taking a deep breath in, his chest rising and falling. Steve’s tone had hardened talking about the _dysfunctional _years of his home life. Familiar territory. Not too many happy times to hurt.

“I tried to go back to the cabin a couple of times,” Steve said. “See if it was still how I remembered it. Couldn’t find it the last time I went looking. Turns out the property developers had demolished it, but they didn’t bother building anything _new _there. Abandoned the whole place. I think they _technically _still own the land, but yeah. Hawkins. Not exactly a hotspot for retail or tourism or whatever they wanted to build there.”

“What about interdimensional happenings and Soviet invasions?” Billy smirked.

Steve snorted. “Well, _yeah, _if they could capitalise on the market…”

“Maybe build a hotel for the Russians?” Billy suggested jokingly.

“Or, like, a Demodog park,” Steve joined in. “You know, where you can walk your Demodogs.”

Billy snorted. “I still think that’s a fucking stupid-ass name.”

Steve gave something that _might _have been a shrug. “So did _everyone_ when Dustin came up with it. But he insisted, and the rest of us had bigger priorities.”

Billy raised his eyebrows at that. “Bigger priorities like _what?_”

Steve gave another shrug. “Running away from the fucking things.”

Billy started laughing, his chest shaking up and down in a way that certainly couldn’t have been comfortable for Steve, but Steve gave his own small laugh. Billy felt something in his chest leap at that, but he was disappointed when the sound petered out. Steve was still clearly trying to control his breathing. Billy ran a hand through his hair absently.

“I didn’t think _this _would be how I’d spend my nineteenth birthday,” he said quietly. “Running from Demodogs, or getting tortured by Russians, or whatever we were doing when it rolled around.”

Billy’s heart sank at the sadness in Steve’s voice. He lifted his head up and pressed his lips against Steve’s head.

Steve’s absence the day before they had ended up kissing for the first time had been the first absence of many. There was no regularity to it – sometimes they’d take him away in the morning, sometimes they’d come for him in the workshop, sometimes they’d come to the cell in the middle of the night. They’d barely have any warning, and Steve would be gone for an indeterminate amount of time, and when they’d bring him back, he’d always be a shaking, broken wreck of himself. Billy would do what he could to pick up the pieces, sometimes talking about idle things, sometimes just holding him until Steve came back to himself, and a couple of times – including after one particularly heart-stopping experience where Steve wasn’t brought back for four days – just coaxing Steve through the day when he could barely keep his eyes open. Whenever he _did _come back to himself after these absences, he wouldn’t talk about it, holding whatever had happened inside him, whether out of an unwillingness to relive it or whether to keep Billy from worrying, Billy couldn’t tell.

So the bruises piled up, the cuts and scars on his skin became more numerous, and Billy did what he could to stop Steve from losing his mind.

Billy shifted slightly, adjusting his head and the arm that snaked around Steve’s shoulders and up into his hair. Steve adjusted his position to get comfortable again as he rested his head closer to Billy’s shoulder blade, finding a small hollow in the crook of Billy’s arm.

“Have I ever told you about California?” Billy asked.

“Hm?” Steve frowned, searching his memory. “No, I… I don’t think so…”

“Well,” Billy smiled. “It’s very different to here. It’s _warm, _for one thing. And _sunny. _It only really rains when a storm comes in from the ocean.”

“Huh?” Steve sounded confused. “Don’t you get, like, _droughts?_”

Billy blinked down at Steve, trying not to laugh too much. “_Yes, _Steve. There’s a reason we’re by the coast.”

“Oh,” Steve said softly. The new angle gave Billy a slightly better view of his face if he tilted his head sideways, revealing a small crease between Steve’s eyebrows.

“Mom, Dad and I used to live in this little house outside LA,” Billy said. “We were right by the ocean. It was great – mom would take me surfing every weekend. Dad was away a lot, he was in the military, so a lot of the time it was just me and my mom. And then we moved to San Francisco when I was about eleven, and – well, that was a _whole _new experience.”

“I bet,” Steve muttered.

“It was amazing,” Billy said. “You know how excited everyone was when the mall opened up? That’s what the city was like _all the time_. You could walk down the street and hardly anyone would give you a second thought. There was so much going on, but you were never far from the ocean. I kept surfing, but there was so much _else _going on… Like, none of that small-town shit you’ve got going on in Hawkins, with neighbours not knowing where their business stops and yours starts. The mall was… practically from the _stone age_ compared to some of the stuff they had in San Francisco.”

Steve gave a soft huff of laughter. “Sounds pretty amazing,” he said softly.

“It is,” Billy breathed.

“We should go sometime,” Steve said. “If we ever get out of here.”

It was Billy’s turn for a small laugh. “Yeah, _if _we ever get out of here.”

“I’m serious, Billy,” Steve turned his head to look at him. He hadn’t quite managed a smile, but there was an earnestness shining in his eyes. “If we ever get out of here, we should go to California. Visit San Francisco, you could teach me how to _surf…_”

Billy looked down at Steve, a small smile playing around his lips. “We’d need to choose the beach carefully,” he said. “There’s some _vicious _territorial wars over the beaches in San Francisco. I can’t just go taking an _amateur _to my old spots.”

Steve managed a smile at that, a genuine fondness shining in his eyes.

“You mean it, though?” Billy asked seriously. “You want to go to California if we ever get out of here?”

Steve shrugged with a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve never heard you talk like that. It’s… it’s _nice. _To see you animated. The too-cool-to-be-happy Billy Hargrove actually getting _excited _about something.”

Billy smiled more widely than he’d remembered smiling in an extremely long time. It was, for the first time since _at least _before he’d crashed his car outside Brimborn Steel Works, a genuine smile. He felt it crease his eyes as his heart swelled.

“Let’s do it, then,” he said. “If we ever get out of here, let’s take a road trip to California. However, in the meantime, we should probably go to sleep.”

Steve made a soft noise of protest but started to roll away from Billy to sleep on the floor. Billy, however, kept his hand firmly around Steve’s shoulders, aware of just how comfortable Steve was. Steve gave up the fight almost immediately, giving Billy a look of mild confusion.

“I thought you didn’t like me sleeping on your arm?” Steve said. “Not that I’m _complaining, _it’s just…”

He trailed off, looking at Billy with confusion in his eyes. Billy smiled down at him, running his hand through Steve’s hair.

“Just this once, Harrington,” Billy said. “Call it a birthday treat.”

-:-

Two months in a Russian prison was not exactly enough to give Steve any real degree of _fluency _in Russian, but it _had _given him a basic understanding of the words he encountered most on a day-to-day basis. He understood _most _of the things being barked at him and picked up on small fragments of conversation from the soldiers. He felt like he’d managed to grasp some basic knowledge of the vocabulary.

Which was why, a few days later, he had his first attempt at a conversation in Russian.

Billy and Steve had finally made it to the end of the instructions, sat next to a large cylinder, larger than either of them. The wire wrapped around it seemed mostly secure, a metal casing screwed in place, with what looked to be enormous brackets to mount it onto a framework that they had not built fastened to the sides. They stood there for a moment, admiring their handiwork.

“So what do we do now?” Billy asked, looking over at Steve.

Steve shrugged. He tilted his head slightly to one side, thinking.

It was _definitely _part of the same machine that he had seen open the Gate in Starcourt. Given everything that Ozerov had said, he was _fairly _certain that they were going to take it back to Hawkins to open another Gate from the Upside Down. However, the _size _of the machine left Steve to wonder about the logistics.

The hangar that the Russians had built in the base they were currently being kept was large enough for heavy goods vehicles to get in and out of the Upside Down. It _had _to be, because Steve knew he’d been brought to Russia in a plane, and the plane would have needed to get into the Upside Down through the Gate that the Russians had opened.

Which opened up a scope of possibilities about what _else _the Russians might have in the Upside Down.

Evidently, he’d been standing still for far too long, looking far too conspicuously idle, because he was jerked out of his thoughts by a rough hand on his shoulders.

“_Pochemu ty ne rabotayesh'?_” a soldier yelled, wheeling Steve around to face him. Steve caught the last word and remembered that it meant ‘_working_’ and extrapolated from there that he was being shouted at for daring to stop.

“_Magnit,_” Steve said stiltedly, gesturing towards the machine. “_Funktsioni…_”

He trailed off into incoherent sounds, completely forgetting how the word ‘_functioning_’ was supposed to end in Russian, but fortunately, the soldier picked up on the general gist.

“_Sdelat' yeshche odin!_”

Steve’s confusion must have shown on his face. He knew the instruction – _‘make another one’ _had come up a few times in the blueprints, but his mind immediately questioned the reason.

The soldier evidently wasn’t used to being questioned, because he immediately barked the instruction again.

“_Sdelat' yeshche odin magnit!_”

Steve gave a nervous nod, before turning back to the instructions. The soldier spared him and Billy one last scathing glance before turning away.

“What did he say?” Billy asked, looking lost. He hadn’t picked up the language to the same extent as Steve, only really trying on the occasions Steve was absent.

“He told us to build another one,” Steve frowned. He cast a furtive glance around the workshop, taking in the sight of the other prisoners giving the spectacle of Steve and Billy being yelled at a wide berth.

For the most part, Steve and Billy ignored the other prisoners. Steve couldn’t speak to them, and he wasn’t about to try leaving the workstation to make friends under the threat of possible execution. But it didn’t make _sense…_

“Charlie said… we only get to build one part of the machine…” Steve said slowly, trying to piece the mystery of _why_ they were being asked to repeat the only task they currently had. “But – I don’t _get _it, why would they ask us to do the same thing _again-_”

“Wait – who’s _Charlie?_”

Steve looked up at Billy, who was frowning at him, looking completely lost. Steve suddenly remembered that he’d never actually _told _Billy very many details about his first day in Russia.

“Do you remember that I told you someone gave me the Russian alphabet on a piece of paper?” Steve explained. “And that the Russians shot him?”

Billy looked at him, his eyebrows set in a frown so deep they were almost touching. “Yeah…”

“That was Charlie,” Steve explained. “He was a prisoner here before I arrived. Some British soldier or something. He basically told me what was going on.”

“Okay, I’m with you,” Billy said, nodding.

“Well, he said we only get to build one part of the machine to stop some Soviet war secrets getting out or something.”

Billy nodded again. “That makes sense, actually. I think it’s called compartmentalising or something.”

Steve looked at him curiously.

“Dad in the military, remember?”

Steve nodded in understanding. “Well, what I _don’t _get is why the hell we’re being asked to build this _again_. I _saw_ the machine, there were some _pretty_ specialised parts, and that guy didn’t even _look _at the instructions, or what we were doing. He didn’t tell us how many times to build it, just to _build another one._”

“Maybe they need more than one?” Billy suggested.

Steve looked down at the blueprints, his mouth twisting slightly.

“I don’t think that’s it,” he said slowly. “I think they’re asking _everyone _to build their parts over and over again.”

“You don’t think they’re just making the _one _machine,” Billy caught on. “You think they’re making lots of them.”

Steve confirmed Billy’s words with a dark look. “And _that _doesn’t make sense at all.”

Billy frowned at him. “Why _not?_” he asked incredulously. “Hawkins is… fucking _Hicksville, _Steve, no offence. Why not build a Gate to a bigger city in America? Why not open up a Gate in, say, the White House or something? Direct attack on the President and all that.”

“Yeah, but then why go to Hawkins in the _first place?_” Steve pointed out. “It’s like you say, it’s _Hicksville. _The _only _thing it has going for it that could possibly interest the Soviets is that it’s the site of the first Gate. If these machines could open up Gates – you know, just _as is _– then why go to the trouble of building Starcourt Mall to open up a Gate underground? It doesn’t make _sense._”

A strange look came over Billy’s face, his eyes widening as he suddenly understood something. A hand fell over his mouth before he pulled it away and ran it through the tangled mane of hair on his head.

“Steve…” he said, sounding horrified. “I think I know how they opened the Gate here.”

“Wait, _what?_”

Billy gave him a dark look. “When you were first brought here, did you see anything of the base in the Other Way Upside Down?”

Steve didn’t bother to correct him. “No, I wasn’t really… _alive_ at the time.”

A ghost of a frown at the flippant way Steve had put it crossed Billy’s face, but he ignored it.

“Well,” Billy explained. “There was a big, burnt up machine on the other side of the Gate. Exactly the same as the one they built here, only completely destroyed.”

Steve looked at him warily. “Okay…”

“What if that _wasn’t _the Other Side Up’s equivalent of the machine?” Billy explained earnestly. “_What if _that was a _second _machine that they’d built there to help them open the Gate?”

“Huh?”

“Steve, _think about it,_” Billy said. “They _knew _what that machine needed to be able to do in order to open the Gate back in Hawkins – you know, the one you went through. What if they’d _tried _to do it here, but they _couldn’t, _because it wasn’t powerful enough, or some interdimensional law of science bullshit, so they went to _Hawkins. _Built Starcourt, built the machine, opened the Gate, blah blah blah, so far, so good, right?”

Steve nodded.

“But what use is a Gate in _Hawkins _to a group of _Russians?_ They didn’t _want _a Gate in Hawkins, they wanted one in _Russia._”

“So they tried to find a way to open a Gate _here _using the Upside Down,” Steve caught on. “Yeah, that makes sense, actually, that _totally _makes sense.”

“Steve, what if _one _of these machines wasn’t powerful enough, but _two – _one on each _side _of the Gate – and you start drilling through the interdimensional walls like it’s a _tunnel_-”

“-And you end up meeting somewhere in the middle,” Steve continued.

Billy nodded. “The sci-fi laser beams meet, there’s a massive explosion that cracks the interdimensional walls-”

“And the Russians have a Gate,” Steve finished.

“And the Russians have a Gate,” Billy repeated, nodding gravely.

It was Steve’s turn to run a hand through his hair.

“Shit,” Steve breathed. “This is bad, this is _really _bad…”

“Steve-”

“Billy, this is the _worst _thing that could happen right now,” he looked up at Billy, barely contained fear and panic shining in his eyes. “This means that the Russians can open up a Gate _anywhere _in the world.”

Billy didn’t bother insulting Steve with placations that it would be okay. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I know.”

“And with the Mind Flayer in control of Ozerov,” Steve said, aware that his voice was jumping half an octave with every sentence, “that means that the _Mind Flayer_ can open up Gates anywhere in the world.”

Billy bent down, looking away from Steve’s panicked face, _thinking_…

“What if we destroyed it?”

“_What?_”

Steve was giving him a horrified look, his face screwed up in confusion.

“What if we destroyed the Gate?” Billy asked. “You did it back in Hawkins, what if we do it _here?_ We could blow the machine to shit.”

“They’ll make another one,” Steve said cynically.

Billy shook his head. “No, they won’t,” he explained. “The machine on the Other Side is completely fucked, it’s useless. It got blasted apart by the other laser drill machine… _thing_. If we destroy the machine on _this _side…”

“No more _Gate,_” Steve finished. “That could work.”

“If they can’t get to the Other Way Up, they can’t put any more of these machines in there, they can’t open any more Gates.”

Steve felt a fire burning in his chest. A tentative ember coming to life in a spluttering flame, but after _months _of feeling completely powerless, at the mercy of the Russians and the Mind Flayer, the notion that there was something that they could _do _– something they could do to _stop _this, rather than simply being a passenger in his own fate – breathed life into him again. For the first time in a long time, he felt a sense of _purpose._

“We should have a backup plan,” Steve said. “We don’t know if it’ll work, if we’ve got this right, if that _is _how they open Gates.”

Billy looked down at the floor. “We _do _know, Steve,” he said quietly.

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “We _do?_”

Billy nodded, not meeting Steve’s eyes. “When I was… _first brought here…_ Ozerov explained a lot of what they were doing. I didn’t understand any of it at the time, otherwise I would have mentioned it, but it wasn’t until now that I… _connected _it all.”

The revelation bowled Steve over. He felt his eyebrows rising dangerously close to his hairline. He swallowed, taking a deep breath.

“Then we _have _to do it,” Steve finally said. “We have to end this. _All _of it. Whatever it takes. But we _do_ need a backup plan. If this goes wrong, they’ll kill us. And then nobody will be left to stop the Mind Flayer.”

“So we kill the Mind Flayer too,” Billy said simply.

“You can’t kill that thing,” Steve pointed out.

“No,” Billy conceded, a determined smile spreading across his face. “But we _can _kill Ozerov.”

“What?”

“Steve,” Billy explained. “That thing left _me _because if I got killed, the part of it that was in me would die as well. It didn’t try to control _you _until it became a last resort to save you, because if you _died, _the same thing would happen. It stopped_ trying_ to possess you for that exact same reason.”

“So we kill Ozerov – _how, _exactly? Just… with a gun or a knife or something?”

“Exactly,” Billy said. “The hosts can die just like we can. And if the _host _dies…”

“The part of the Mind Flayer inside it dies as well.”

“Couple that with blowing up the Gate…”

“And the Mind Flayer stays on the other side of the Gate where it belongs.”

“No more Mind Flayer, no more Gate,” Billy grinned.

Steve matched Billy’s grin, his determination getting stronger by the second. “So we kill Ozerov, we sneak into the vault, we get the keys to blow the machine up, we fight our way to the console-”

“Steve,” Billy cut him off with an annoyed look.

Steve looked back at him blankly.

“That’s already sounding _way _too complicated,” Billy snapped. “That sounds risky as hell, unnecessarily elaborate, and there’s _way _too many things that could go wrong for my liking.”

“But… that’s how we blew up the Gate…” Steve said blankly.

“Well,” Billy said, raising his eyebrows and looking at Steve with that all-too-familiar look that told him that he was being an idiot. “I think I might know a simpler way.”

-:-

Tommy was lucky to get off with the punishment that he did.

He was asked to perform community service, to do two hundred hours cleaning up the graffiti on public buildings. Tommy was seething about it, but his father pointed out that he was lucky he didn’t have any jail time.

Still, three hours a day of community service five days a week would still continue until after Christmas.

The reactions to Tommy’s assault charge had been mixed. There was a clear divide between those who had thought that it had been a Halloween prank gone a bit too far, a few brave souls among them daring to call Nancy ‘_Carrie,_’ and those who saw it as completely unacceptable. Troy Walsh and James Dante had found themselves being brutally shot down by Stacey Albright in their attempts to make light of it in the cafeteria.

The slightly unexpected side effect of the Halloween party was that most people were now treating Jonathan with a healthy degree of caution. They were ultimately friendly towards him, but there was a new begrudging respect that Jonathan noticed was born out of fear. The simple truth of it was that Jonathan had now won fights against _two _people who’d practically run the school in their time at Hawkins High – people who most students knew not to mess with.

It turned out that messing with Jonathan Byers was an even worse idea.

Tommy was not about to suffer another blow to his pride by walking around in the middle of the day in a bright yellow, high-visibility jacket cleaning up graffiti for anyone to see, so for the most part, he opted to do it in the late evenings. The days were getting colder as they moved into November, wind chilling him as he worked outside, scrubbing at brick walls to get out old paint, but despite the cold, he refused to change his schedule.

One evening, he was scrubbing at a particularly stubborn bit of paint in the Town Hall car park – a crude drawing of a penis that had been somewhat creatively turned into the letter T and used to spell out an insult to Harry Beaumont several years previously – when a voice caught his attention.

“Mr Hagan, isn’t it?”

Tommy turned around to see Paul Harrington, of all people, watching him. A long dark coat was wrapped around him over his trademark suit, and he was looking at him with a curious expression.

The last time Tommy had shared any words of significance with the man had been several years previously. Steve’s father had made it abundantly clear that he thought Tommy was a bad influence, that Tommy was going to lead his son into a situation very much like the one Tommy was in now. He did not feel that he needed that _particular_ lecture that evening.

“Well, if it isn’t our new _Mayor,_” Tommy said sarcastically, turning back to the wall. “Congratulations on the job, by the way, don’t think I’ve said that before.”

He didn’t really care if he was being disrespectful. He’d never entirely felt that Paul Harrington _deserved _the respect that he demanded.

“Thank you,” Paul said dryly. He leant back against the hood of his car, folding his arms across his chest.

He wasn’t entirely sure _why _he’d called out to Hagan when he’d seen him scrubbing the walls of the parking lot. He’d glimpsed him before – Paul was lucky if he left the office much before nine, which _still _felt early to him after decades of dealing with people who would pay six to seven figures to his law firm for the convenience of having him whenever they wanted him. Perhaps on this particular evening, Paul had found him a desperately pitiful figure, the red windbreaker and checked scarf barely seeming enough against the bitter wind that was blowing against them.

It was a strange feeling, because while Paul did not _condone _Hagan’s actions by any stretch of the imagination, he very much understood the anger that had driven him. He was curious, too, about how Hagan had ended up directing the anger towards Nancy Wheeler. On the few occasions he and Linda had _met _Nancy, Paul had quietly been delighted that Steven had found her. She was _exactly _what he felt Steven had needed, with the added bonus of getting Steven away from the man now standing before him, scrubbing paint off a brick wall.

“It’s good to see you taking responsibility for your actions,” Paul said, glancing sideways out at the deserted street.

Hagan gave a bitter laugh, no humour to be found anywhere in his tone. “Yeah, I’ve got _so _much choice,” he snapped sarcastically.

Paul shrugged. “You broke the law, and actions have consequences-”

“_Jesus, _spare me the lecture, you’re not my _dad,_” Tommy snapped back, his temper rising. “Don’t give me all that _bullshit _about actions having consequences, there are _plenty _of people around who haven’t had _any_.”

Paul looked at Hagan’s back guardedly. “The people who were responsible for what happened this summer have been prosecuted. Mayor Kline was found guilty. Like it as not, I’m the one who’s trying to _fix _this. Rest assured, the people responsible _have _not and _will_ not get away with what they’ve done.”

Hagan gave that same bitter, sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, _right,_” he muttered.

“Excuse me?” Paul said guardedly.

“The _‘people responsible’ _haven’t had _shit _happen to them,” Hagan turned to face Paul, leaning back against the wall. “It took _me _coming along to settle the goddamn score. I – _I _was their fucking _consequence!_”

Paul gave him a questioning look. “You were _Nancy Wheeler’s _consequence?”

Hagan laughed again, looking out at the street, before turning back to Paul with a sarcastic grin on his face.

“You don’t _see _it, _do _you?” Tommy laughed. “Nobody ever _does._”

Paul kept his expression schooled into one of neutrality. “See _what?_”

Hagan let out a bark of laughter that was sounding almost maniacal. “How _every fucking time _something happens in this town, the Princess and the Creep are _always _standing five feet away. You ever notice that?”

“You mean Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers,” Paul assumed.

Hagan’s laughter died on his lips. “Byers’ brother goes missing – the creep’s standing right there. The kid goes missing on his way home from _Nancy Wheeler’s _house. That fucking… _Holland _girl goes missing – incidentally, from _your back yard. _You know who _else_ was there? Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers. The creep’s spying on us from the woods.”

Paul blinked, the only gesture to express his surprise at the revelation, but it was enough for Hagan to pick up on.

“Oh,” he grinned. “Did Steve not _tell_ you that part of the story?”

Paul sighed, pushing himself off the hood of the car. “I’m not about to indulge conspiracy theories,” he said.

“What about that Radio Shack employee?” Hagan called, snagging Paul’s attention again. “He was dating Joyce Byers at the time. Gets killed very suddenly and mysteriously. No idea what happened to him. But _again, _Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers are _right there. _They’d just started dating. They’d chucked Steve and broken his _poor little heart_, and Byers’ mom’s boyfriend shows up _dead._ And _then –_ the _piece de resistance – _Starcourt Mall blows up, killing Steve, and Billy, and the Holloways and all those other people, and who should be among the survivors? _Wheeler and Byers, _once again.”

He finished with a flourish of his hands. Paul gave him an unreadable look, schooled into his trademark searching look.

“So go right ahead, _Mister Mayor,_” Hagan said bitterly. “Go _fix _what happened at Starcourt. Fix all the shit that Kline did. But make sure you fix it _all. _Give my uncle back the land Kline forced him off by jacking up property taxes. Are you going to fix _that, _too?”

Paul looked up at Hagan, the surprise finally showing in a moment of weakness, the control that he so carefully built his life around cracking.

“_Jesus…_” Tommy laughed once more. “You didn’t even fucking know, _did _you?”

Paul schooled his expression into the searching look he wore so well. “What _exactly _is it that I didn’t know?”

Hagan’s laugh grew maniacal again as he threw his head back and looked up at the sky. “_Jesus…_” he cackled. “Kline forced a load of people off their land to build Starcourt. He then did the same to try and build a _second _mall. My uncle got forced off for that second mall out in East Hawkins. You going to fix _that?_”

Paul tried to keep his expression schooled as he gave Hagan one last look.

“I told you,” he said softly. “I’d fix _everything._”

Hagan laughed at him sceptically. “I doubt it,” he snickered, turning back to the wall.

Paul ignored him, opening the door to his car and climbing in. He drove out of the parking lot, but didn’t go straight home. He pulled over onto the side of the road about five minutes later, his mind racing.

Tommy Hagan was now the _second _person to come to him with an insane conspiracy theory about Starcourt. He would have written it off – for one thing, he did not think it was entirely within Nancy Wheeler’s arsenal to be responsible for the death of her best friend, nor did he think Jonathan was responsible for the disappearance of his brother – but the two theories he’d heard were scarily close to one another. Words thrown at him in a prison cell that he could leave drifted back to him – words he hadn’t thought about in over a month.

_“Starcourt Industries… They’re an international corporation. They’re… They’re working with the Soviets or something. And the government… It knows about this. And something happened that night, and suddenly, everyone who might know anything about it ends up dead. Tom Holloway and his family… Do you honestly think they were just in the mall, covering some stupid story about the ‘changing landscape of Hawkins’? On the fourth of July? He and that other journalist… they must have been looking into it. They must have gotten too close, and so they killed them. And just to make sure that everyone who might know anything about it stays quiet… they kill Tom’s family, too. And… And your kid… he’s close to Joyce Byers’ kids, who’s close to Jim Hopper. Hopper and Byers… they know about it, they’re in on the cover-up. They came to my office, they broke my goddamn nose, and they come to my house and they take… They take these papers, these land deeds… It’s my protection against these people. They’re in on this shit. And your kid… he must have gotten too close, so they killed him too.”_

The realisation crashed over him. Yes, Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers had been tangentially involved in _all _of the incidents that Hagan had mentioned, but they weren’t the _only _ones. Jim Hopper had been there, too. _If _Kline had been telling the truth, then Hopper had come and taken the evidence Kline had collected on the conspiracy. Hagan had mentioned people being forced off their land, Kline had mentioned that what he’d had were land deeds.

He didn’t quite believe it when he pulled the car back onto the road, but he was starting to listen. It was time that he made this _right_.

It was time he started looking for himself.

-:-

Billy’s plan was risky, Steve couldn’t deny that, but it was certainly much less risky than his own plan to repeat what Hopper and Joyce had done in Starcourt.

The only disadvantage of Billy’s plan was that it involved them splitting up. Steve had reasoned that it would be easier to do most of it together, but Billy’s argument of saving time was significantly stronger. They planned on escaping their cell and running around the base – if _either _component of Billy’s plan succeeded, the alarm would be raised, making the other component significantly harder. To get around this, they would do both parts concurrently – Steve would take out Ozerov, and Billy would destroy the machine.

There was a certain elegance to the plan that Steve couldn’t help but admire. It would be nigh on impossible to escape from the workshop, or at any point during their daily routine, where guards were on high alert for anyone trying something like that. Their cell was impossible to escape – even if either of them had known the first thing about picking locks, the design of the door ensured that there wasn’t even a keyhole on the inside. That left Steve and Billy with one option – to wait for the only other time the door opened, where the only Russian guards around would be the single guard stood outside the cell, as well as the two guards required to take one prisoner from the cell to a place where they _knew _Ozerov would be.

“Are you _sure _about this?” Steve asked Billy quietly when they heard a key scrape in the lock in the middle of the night. “If we _do _this… that’s _it. _We won’t have any way back home. They’ll kill us.”

Billy shrugged. “They’re probably going to kill us anyway, Steve,” he pointed out. “I’ve made… some _really fucking big _mistakes in my life. I… That _thing _made me hurt – made me _kill_ a… a _lot _of people, and I couldn’t stop it. But I _can _stop this. And _if _I can stop them – if I can protect _Max, _and everyone else back home… it probably won’t make up for everything, but… at least it’s _something _good to do with my life.”

Steve felt his heart pounding in his chest as the door swung open with a creak, revealing two soldiers, who walked in, placing their hands upon Steve’s arms and hauling him to his feet.

“It’s been nice knowing you, Billy,” Steve gave Billy a warm, slightly melancholy smile. “You know, the _real _you.”

“See you on the other side,” Billy smiled back. He tried to bring some of his signature cockiness to it, but by the look on Steve’s face, it didn’t quite mask the sadness that was constricting his chest. There was too much _empathy _in Steve’s eyes, too much of his own feelings being reflected back at him.

_This was it._

Billy got to his feet as quietly as he could as the guards started leading Steve out. Steve caught his toe on the door, letting out a hiss of pain and jerking to a halt in the doorway. He was given a split second to stop before being dragged forwards.

It was enough for Billy to get his hand on the door.

He yanked it back as Steve swung his body sideways. Normally, it wouldn’t have been more than an irritant to the soldier, but it came unexpectedly, and the guard on his left stumbled back against the doorway. Billy slammed the door closed as hard as he could, catching the soldier’s head in the doorway. There was a sickening crunch as the guard fell to the floor, knocked out cold.

Steve used his free hand to swing the other soldier holding him sideways as Billy hauled open the door. The third guard opened his mouth to let out a shout, but Billy slammed a hand over his mouth, shoving him back into the opposite wall. The guard fumbled with his holster, pulling out a gun between himself and Billy, but Billy grabbed it, twisting his wrist until the guard was forced to either let go of the gun or suffer a broken wrist. Billy swung the gun sideways, catching the guard’s head with the butt of the pistol and watching him fall to the ground.

He spun around to see Steve finally yank his other arm free from the last guard standing, a hand closed around the Russian’s neck to stop him shouting for help. He swung his newly freed arm back, his hand closing into a fist before it collided with the side of the guard’s face. He drew his fist back again, and _again _and _again _until the guard finally stopped moving.

It had, if Billy was honest, gone significantly better than either of them had dared to hope.

“Let’s get them inside the cell,” Steve said, relieved that the key was still in the lock.

It took them longer to carry three unconscious bodies into the cell than it had to render said bodies unconscious. Billy pulled out a second pistol from the holster on one of the soldier’s belts, handing it to Steve.

“Remember our shooting practice?” Billy smirked.

Steve tilted his head sideways. “I remember ending up on my ass more times than not.”

Billy gave a small but genuine laugh. “Well, it should be easier with one of _these._ It’s not an automatic weapon, it doesn’t repeat-fire, and it’s a hell of a lot less powerful than those guns we found in that place.”

Steve nodded with a smile. “Good to know.”

Billy glanced down at the unfamiliar weapon, examining it for a moment, turning it over in his hands before he noticed the safety.

“So you click _this _to turn off the safety,” he explained to Steve, demonstrating. “Click it _back _to turn it on. Got it?”

Steve nodded with a slightly cocky smile.

“Good,” Billy said softly. He gently leant forwards, pulling Steve’s head in and quickly pressed his lips against Steve’s, before pulling back to see that same melancholy look in Steve’s eyes, not entirely belayed by the smile on his lips.

“Steve?” Billy breathed.

“Yeah?” Steve’s voice was slightly breathless as he took a step backwards.

“Good luck.”

He tried for a smile, something sincere for once, but he was sure that, just like Steve’s attempt, it was undermined by the crushing weight that was settling in his chest. Steve took another step backwards down the corridor, the corners of his lips forced slightly upwards.

“You too,” Steve breathed back, before turning around and jogging down the corridor.

Billy watched him go, watching him turn at the end of the corridor, trying not to think about how unlikely it was that he would ever see Steve again.

-:-

Steve slipped down the corridor, trying to retrace his steps. It didn’t help that all these hallways looked exactly the same.

He’d been led down this way before, usually at the point of a gun. He’d _tried _to focus on the route, paying attention to all the lefts and rights that he’d taken. That said, recreating the route was proving difficult – especially since he kept second-guessing himself.

His heart leapt, however, when he saw the door up ahead. A dim fluorescent light was shining on the other side of the window. He _knew _this door – he was on the right path.

He carefully opened it, easing his way into the flight of stairs. He took it quickly, trying to be as quiet as possible, but sacrificing some of the stealth he’d had in the corridors in favour of speed. He knew that if anyone else came _here, _he’d have nowhere to hide. He’d be discovered, possibly shot on sight, and definitely _wouldn’t_ make it to his goal.

He would never have thought that _that room _would have _ever _been his goal.

Still, if the soldiers had come to drag him out of his cell in the middle of the night, they always took him to the same place. They always followed the same route, and the same people would always be there. He would always then be interrogated by Stepanov and Ozerov. But not today.

No, today he was going to go there and put a bullet in Ozerov’s skull. Hopefully, that would kill him straight away, and the Mind Flayer would die. If it left Ozerov before Steve could shoot him, he would kill the person it chose to inhabit next. If it tried to inhabit _him…_ well…

He’d tried to do it once before. Hopefully a quicker, more definitive way would prove slightly more effective.

He finally found the door he needed, towards the bottom of the flight of stairs, peering through it. He _knew _it was the right door. The lighting looked right, the fluorescent bulb in the corridor beyond buzzing in that same, eerie way that it always did.

Steve slipped through the door, his heart pounding. He was drawing closer. Everything started to look terrifyingly familiar. His heart _always _pounded as he walked these corridors – it was practically a Pavlovian response at this point – but this time was different. This time, he was terrified of what he was about to _do._

Steve had never considered killing _anyone _before. He tried to reason with himself that he wasn’t killing a _person, _he was killing the _Mind Flayer, _but something in him stopped. Billy had still been _in there. _He’d still been _human, _he’d still _seen _it all. When Billy had been so blasé about just _killing _Ozerov, Steve had, for the most part, gone along with it, because it had seemed so simple at the time. But now that he was faced with the _reality…_

Steve forced himself to think back over everything Ozerov had done to him _before _he’d been possessed by the Mind Flayer. He’d tortured him in Starcourt, ordered his fingernails ripped out and his bones broken. He’d made it extremely clear that Steve’s life was in his hands when he’d first woken up strapped to the hospital bed, made it extremely clear that he thought that Steve deserved to die. He’d shot Robin, he’d targeted Will Byers, he’d suggested capturing and experimenting on El…

His chest tightened as he thought of his friends. He thought of how badly he’d let them down. He’d known for a while that he was prepared to _die _for them. Now he just needed to find it in him to _kill _for them.

And, if Steve was perfectly honest, there were few people he felt _deserved _to die more than Ozerov.

Steve pressed himself flat against the wall, hearing soft voices in Russian around the corner. He pressed himself into the shadows, wondering quite _how _he was going to get rid of the guards at the door. He knew there were two guards – there always was – as an extra precaution. Steve didn’t want to _shoot _them – even leaving aside his moral qualms of shooting Russian soldiers, the practicality of shooting two guards would raise the alarm inside the room, and he knew how valuable the element of surprise would be. His plan was simple – burst into the room and shoot Ozerov in the head. What happened next would happen. He and Billy hadn’t planned any escape routes. Escaping wasn’t important. The only things that mattered were Ozerov’s death and the Gate’s destruction.

As quietly as he could, Steve tried to open the barrel of the gun. He pulled out one of the bullets – he chose one in what he thought was the middle of it, so that the critical split-second advantage Steve had would not be lost due to an empty round. Silently, he bent down and tossed the bullet down one of the forks in the corridor before pressing himself back into the shadows.

The soft tinging of the bullet hitting the concrete floor was enough to catch the attention of the guards. The flow of their conversation broke, and they started muttering something to each other with increased urgency. Steve didn’t bother listening to what they were saying, pressing himself into the dark. He thanked whatever deity was watching him that the electrics in this part of the base were so bad that Steve had genuinely thought it was the Mind Flayer’s presence causing the problem until one day, the bulbs had blown completely.

Steve watched the soldiers pass from the opposite side of the fork. While their backs were turned, he slipped past and up the corridor. He broke into a run, gathering speed as he saw the door he needed to get through –

There was a shout behind him –

He pushed himself into a sprint –

His hand was on the door –

_For his friends._

He flung the door open, gun raised, aiming it at –

_Nothing._

There was nobody inside the room.

A slow clap echoed from behind him. Steve wheeled around to see Stepanov approaching him – _alone._

“Where’s Ozerov?” Steve asked.

Stepanov gave him a humourless smile as he approached Steve. Steve found himself being backed further into the room.

“Not here,” he said coldly. “When we discovered your guards in your cell, the alarm was raised. It helped that you got lost a few times, and that you forgot that we have cameras here. I sent Ozerov away.”

Steve’s heart began to thunder in his chest. A pounding in his ears started. If they’d known he was coming, then that meant –

_Billy._

He lunged towards the door. Blind panic took over – _he had to get to Billy – _

He swung his arm up, only to find his hand being caught by Stepanov. Stepanov began to twist his wrist, prising the gun from his grip.

He felt hands on his free arm – a blinding pain to the back of his head –

Colours danced across his vision for the briefest second before the world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Look! Plot! Be proud of me!  
Jokes about all the endless angst of the last few chapters aside, I'm actually so excited for these little plot arcs. Yes, there have been some serious time jumps, and that's because day-to-day life gets really repetitive really quickly, so I've adopted the High Fantasy trope of just jumping through to the action and the plot, because I feel we've had fun totally messing up all the relationships for a little while...
> 
> You may have noticed that in the last chapter, I was shockingly NICE to Steve and Billy. They went for a WHOLE CHAPTER without Steve getting hurt! But don't worry, I haven't been abducted and replaced by an alien, I AM in fact still here, and yes, I fully intend to thoroughly rectify the situation. I promised major big-time hurt!Steve, and I will DELIVER major big-time hurt!Steve...


	30. Part 3 Chapter 9: Seeing The Other Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence. So much violence. Graphic descriptions of torture. Yes, I am in therapy.

Billy crept along the hallway, his heart beating so fast he could swear it was trying to bruise the inside of his ribcage. He kept low, kept quiet – years of sneaking back into his house to stop his father finding out he’d gone out finally paid off in a way he’d never imagined as he ducked behind a door.

He slipped out into the main hangar, staying as close to the wall as possible as he ducked behind a crate, taking in his surroundings.

It really _was _a marvel of engineering. Rows upon rows of vehicles were parked alongside the walls, huge armoured SUVs looking like toy trucks compared to some of the fighter jets that had been settled on the far side of the hangar. The machine opening the Gate took pride of place, enormous, the red light illuminating the room.

Billy ducked behind one of the nearby cars, thinking fast. It was going to take a miracle for him to get from where he was to the machine. However, once he was there, it wouldn’t be too difficult to dismantle the machine. He’d spent the last two months learning how to build part of the machine with Steve, and while he wasn’t exactly a rocket scientist, he _had _spent far, far too much time tinkering with his Camaro, and while he’d been following Steve’s instructions, he’d noticed a pretty glaring flaw.

The instructions on the blueprints had made it extremely clear that the polarity of the electromagnet he’d built needed to be exactly right. And the Russians had all but handed him the instructions on how to reverse it.

He didn’t know _exactly _what would happen, but based on everything he’d learnt about these machines, Billy was fairly certain that delicately balanced interdimensional laser drills tended to go bang when the machine components came out of synchronisation. Much like how gears on a mechanical motor shredded themselves, he hoped that something similar would happen here. Given that the last time anyone had tried destroying the machine, Steve had fled into what he’d considered to be Hell to escape the subsequent explosion and left everyone to believe that he was dead, Billy’s hopes for a similar fireworks display were high.

Suddenly, Billy felt cold metal pressing against his head.

“Move,” came a low voice from behind him.

Billy didn’t move instantly. A sinking feeling began settling in his gut. His eyes fell shut, and absurdly, he felt a grin spread across his face, a small laugh escaping his lips.

He found himself being led out into the centre of the hangar, the soft, absurd laugh still present. His hands raised up, he walked out, the slight pressing of the gun against the back of his head guiding him. The red light of the Gate burnt through his eyes, and he finally found himself opening them.

He was stood less than ten feet from the machine.

“General Stepan-”

Billy took his chance.

Impulse rather than any thought-out plan guided him as he spun around. He put a hand on top of the gun, pushing it down as he swung his other fist. The soldier’s temporary distraction of calling for help was all he needed, the fist colliding with the soldier’s cheek. The soldier stumbled backwards and Billy pulled out the pistol he’d taken from the soldiers outside the cell. He sprinted towards the machine, dimly aware of the voices shouting behind him –

He could see soldiers running towards him to intercept him –

_He could still make it –_

One of the soldiers finally crossed his path, gun raised. A single warning shot was all the soldier fired, but it was enough to make Billy stumble, giving three more soldiers a chance to cover him. Billy spun around, looking wildly for an escape –

He was surrounded on all sides –

He raised the gun – _He was prepared to take down as many of these bastards with him –_

Something beyond the circle of soldiers stopped him.

General Stepanov was walking across the hangar. Two soldiers behind the General were carrying something between them, and though Billy couldn’t see what it was, he had a terrifying idea of what it might be.

His fears were confirmed when Stepanov stepped aside, letting the soldiers throw the unconscious figure of Steve face-down onto the floor. All Billy could see of him was the dark hair falling across his face, a patch of blood glistening on the back of Steve’s head. Stepanov pulled out a gun, pointing it at Steve, the General’s eyes never leaving Billy’s.

Any thought of defiance Billy may have had left him at the heart-stopping sight. He lowered the gun in his hand, placing it carefully on the floor. He raised his arms above his head again, letting one of the soldiers fasten restraints around his wrists. He gave Stepanov a burning glare which softened on the sight of his only friend in this living nightmare, still lying on the floor, unmoving.

The overwhelming sense of failure almost drowned him.

-:-

Steve found himself slowly drifting back to consciousness. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on his back, looking up at Billy’s worried face.

“Hey,” Billy said, his face opening up into a nervous smile.

Steve didn’t quite have it in him to articulate a proper response. He let out a groan as he blinked back against the fluorescent light. His head felt like it had been carved open with a blunt saw, agony sending his vision swimming. The last time he’d felt like this had been after the man currently sitting above him had pummelled him into a state of unconsciousness. The light against his eyes sent waves of pain lancing to his forehead. The agony of it all was making him feel sick.

“You’re okay,” Billy said gently, his voice mercifully soft and quiet. The sentiment was a lie, it was complete and utter _bullshit_ and they both knew it, but Steve appreciated it, nonetheless.

Steve finally took in his surroundings. They weren’t back in their cell – this was somewhere _new. _Memories of what had happened slowly started to come back to Steve… _The empty room… Stepanov’s appearance… The threats to Billy…_

“What’s going on?”

Billy looked around briefly, carefully schooled worry etched on his face. Billy was alert, watchful, guarded, _tense…_

Steve finally saw properly where they were. They were in a cage, wire mesh surrounding them on all sides. Steve made out a gate on one side of the cell, a locking mechanism outside. The cage was set against one concrete wall, the only break in the monotony of the wall being a second gate that appeared to lead to a tunnel. It was square, vertical bars rather than the crossing mesh of the rest of the cage, but these bars seemed to be significantly more heavy-duty. That was not to say that the cage walls were poorly made – they certainly seemed to be a step up from the mesh that Hawkins High had set up around a lot of the outside sports facilities, but the bars on the gate over the tunnel were as thick as Steve’s arm and far less breakable.

“Where are we?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know,” Billy breathed back, looking around nervously. “But I don’t think it’s anywhere good.”

Steve rolled onto his side with a grunt and started to push himself up off the ground. Billy’s hands steadied him, helping ease him to his feet. He kept his arms around Steve’s shoulders as Steve found himself leaning heavily on Billy, the room spinning and coming in and out of focus far too much for Steve to be comfortable with. Particularly not when he and Billy were locked in an unfamiliar cage.

A cage that, for a reason Steve couldn’t quite put his finger on, had Steve completely on edge.

“We need to get out of here,” Steve breathed, vaguely trying to push himself towards the gate in the mesh. He stumbled off of Billy, clinging desperately onto the wire of the cage to keep him upright.

Billy, however, was not about to leave him alone, his hand coming to rest firmly between Steve’s shoulder blades.

“Steve-”

Any further protests of Billy were cut off by Steve lifting his head and peering beyond the cage at the outside, his eyes widening as he took in the sight. He pushed himself back off the cage into Billy, who promptly wrapped his arms around his shoulder, steadying him.

“_Jesus, _Harrington, you’re a fucking idiot,” Steve heard Billy protest under his breath, but Steve was still focused on the man beyond the bars.

Stepanov was watching them, a feigned disinterest in Steve’s dizzy attempts at manoeuvring around the cage belied by the fact that his eyes were following Steve’s own.

“Let us out,” Steve tried to demand. His own voice was louder than Billy’s soothing tone, jarring at the pounding in his head.

Stepanov simply gave him an unreadable look before walking up to the locking mechanism by the gate.

“Ozerov played a risky game, putting you together,” Stepanov said, his voice neutral. “I had doubts about his choice. Today, you proved me right.”

Steve glared at Stepanov. He felt slightly steadier on his feet, but he still welcomed Billy’s steadying presence.

“I would normally simply put a bullet in your head for such acts,” Stepanov continued. “But you do not deserve such mercy. Such treason cannot be tolerated.”

Stepanov pressed a button on the locking mechanism. A buzzing alarm echoed throughout the cage. Steve and Billy wheeled around towards the concrete wall as the gate over the tunnel began to lift like a portcullis. A soft growling sound echoed from the black depths. The lights began flickering. In that instant, Steve _knew. _

“Billy,” Steve breathed. “Get behind me.”

Billy shot him a frown. “Yeah, like _hell, _Steve.”

“Billy, I’m serious-”

“Not happening, Harrington-”

They both broke off as something finally emerged from the darkness. Slinking on all fours towards them, the first they saw was a pale hand, enormous long fingers ending in claws. The white arm, skin mottled with what could have been scars, followed, pushing out a faceless head from the darkness. The skin shone under the light, glistening.

Billy felt his heart go cold as it pushed its way into the light, straightening up. It towered above them, the lines in its face fluttering, a soft growl, almost a purr, sounded. Nine feet tall, humanoid, Billy knew at once what it was, despite having never seen one in the flesh before. The reality of it was terrifying, so much more so than he’d believed. He was so focused on it that he barely felt Steve’s arm pull him closer, placing himself between it and him.

The Demogorgon opened its mouth into a terrifying roar.

It advanced on them, taking a step towards them, those clawed arms outstretched. Adrenaline coursed through Steve’s body, helping him forget the pounding in his head, helping him forget his unsteadiness on his feet as he faced down the monstrosity. He’d fought one of these things before – he’d come out the other side – he had to do it again –

_He had to save Billy._

The Demogorgon swung its enormous arm and Steve reacted on instinct. He shoved Billy sideways, diving in the opposite direction. The claws caught on the mesh, the Demogorgon yanking his claws out, leaving a few broken cracks in the wire.

The Demogorgon followed Steve – in a heart-stopping instant, he remembered the blood on the back of his head. Steve ducked as the claw swung above him, swiping through the air. Steve dodged around, dancing around the back of it. The monster turned, raising its hand in another swipe –

Billy ploughed into Steve, shoving him out of the way. They collided with the gate in front of Stepanov, the crash as the gate rattled in its frame snapping the Demogorgon’s attention towards them. Another swipe of those claws as the Demogorgon brought both arms together –

Billy shoved Steve down as the claws tore through the wire behind them like it was little more than paper. The locking mechanism was knocked from its bracket, dangling from the door frame, held up only by the wires still in place. The Demogorgon bent over them, screaming another roar, both Billy and Steve staring up at the open petals of its face, lined with teeth, surrounding the chasm of a terrifying maw.

The monster’s arms were outstretched – they watched it swing its arm behind them –

Steve suddenly pushed himself to his feet, grabbing the monster’s wrist. He spun under the Demogorgon’s arm, pulling it back away from Billy. The monster thrashed its head, turning to try and get at Steve as he danced behind it.

Billy leapt to his feet, looking for an opening, but just as he found his balance, planting his feet instinctively, the Demogorgon swung the arm Steve was holding sideways. Steve was thrown off-balance and went flying into the side of the cage with a crash. The monster charged at him, and Steve barely had a chance to recover before it was on him.

Steve flung up his hands, catching the hand that descended onto him, his fingers interlocking in between the claws in a crude mockery of the way Steve and Billy’s fingers would intertwine. He did his best to hold it back, but the Demogorgon’s strength was beyond his, the claws closing down on his arms, scratching deep gouges on the back of his hands, wrists and forearms – wherever they could reach. The Demogorgon swung its free arm back –

Billy took his chance.

He leapt forwards, grabbing the Demogorgon’s free arm in the same way Steve had done. He caught the wrist, but rather than twisting himself under the monster’s arm like Steve had, he pulled it round, coming face to face with it. A feral grin danced on his lips as he faced down the monster – it was completely absurd, he _knew _it, but a manic energy took over him. He _wanted _this fight – after months of dealing with the Russians _controlling_ him, taking away any autonomy, any _power…_

It was the same manic energy he’d felt all those months ago when he’d found himself breaking Steve’s skull open against the Byers’ floor. Unlike then, he knew he wasn’t going to win this fight, but the adrenaline surging through him was so _life-affirming…_

The monster advanced on him –

It raised its claws –

It twisted suddenly as two bloody hands found themselves on the Demogorgon’s wrists. It was pulling at them, turning its head in a macabre attempt to see what was going on – Billy again found this absurdly amusing – _how could the thing _see _anything without a face? _– Steve’s head appeared over the claws, his face screwed up with the strain of holding back this monstrosity…

“Billy!” he hissed. “The door!”

Billy’s mind took a beat to process the instructions, his eyes finding the door –

The locking mechanism, still swinging tantalisingly on the other side of the door. Billy could reach it – the tears in the metal cage giving him just enough access –

He sprinted over to the door, fumbling through the gap. Dimly, beyond the cage, he heard shouts of soldiers, the sound of running footsteps as he forced his hand through the tiny gap in the bars. The sharp, torn edges of them caught and scratched his skin as he fumbled his hand through, reaching for the button –

The first button he pressed sent the portcullis over the tunnel descending with a buzzer. The sounds distracted the Demogorgon momentarily as Billy threw a split-second glance over his shoulder at Steve. Steve’s face was screwed up in pain, redoubling his grip as the Demogorgon was stumbling backwards, shoving Steve against the bars of the cage again, crushing him between its monstrous body and the metal.

Billy’s fingers found the second button, and the gate swung open. Billy caught it, throwing it open only to have a gun forced in his face. He turned around, holding the gate open, only to see Steve still struggling.

“_Billy!_” Steve forced out. “_Go! Just go!_”

_Yeah. Like hell._

The soldier on the other side still seemed to be trying to force Billy back into the cage, for one thing. Billy looked around and found Stepanov, who was watching the scene with renewed interest, but was yet to give the soldier the liberty to take the kill shot. Billy spun around, both arms outstretched as he stood in the doorway, planting his feet to stop any Russians from shoving him back into the cage and shutting the door.

The Demogorgon finally got one of its arms free, swinging Steve around again. Steve crashed into the middle of the cage, a streak of blood drawing a line down the concrete as he skidded across it –

The Demogorgon was bearing down on him, huge maw opened up –

“_HEY!_” Billy yelled.

The Demogorgon’s head snapped up, looking at Billy.

“Come and get me, you son of a bitch!” Billy shouted.

The Demogorgon advanced.

“_Come on!_” Billy shouted, banging his hands on the doorway, sending the wire walls of the cage rattling. “_COME ON!_”

The Demogorgon pounced –

Billy dived to one side as the Demogorgon flew over his head and out of the cage. Billy yanked the gate shut, hearing it buzz with a satisfying click. He backed up towards where Steve was, never taking his eye off the carnage occurring outside the cell.

The Demogorgon had ploughed straight into the soldier that had held a gun to Billy’s head. The man’s chest torn open, never able to get off a single shot. Gunfire echoed around the cage as the few soldiers in the vicinity aimed their weapons at the Demogorgon. The bullets either missed or had little to no effect, barely grazing the monster’s skin.

Stepanov had retreated to the back of the room, searching in a cupboard for something. His eyes never left the Demogorgon even as the monster tore apart the soldiers that ran forwards to form a line, protecting their General. Wave upon wave of bullets rained down on the Demogorgon. Billy found himself crouching down, back turned to them as he bent over Steve, still lying on the floor.

The last of the soldiers were gone, their corpses cast aside by the monster as it tore indiscriminately at flesh. It saw the one remaining human still living on this side of the gate –

It charged at Stepanov –

Stepanov turned, raising a weapon –

The monster gave out a huge shriek of pain that shredded at Steve and Billy’s eardrums. Something illuminated the room in blinding white, flickering light. Billy instinctively closed his eyes, but slowly cracked them open to chance a glance at the scene…

The Demogorgon’s cry went on. Billy didn’t need to be an expert on them to tell that it was a sound of agony. What looked like a taser was being held in Stepanov’s hands, but it was more powerful than any taser Billy had ever seen – Hell_, _it was more powerful than Billy had any concept of tasers ever being. It was so powerful that bolts of electricity were visible, travelling up the wires and into the Demogorgon. The weapon itself was big – it required Stepanov to use both hands as thousands of volts of electricity coursed constantly through the monster.

The scream finally stopped. Billy and Steve heard a thud a second later and the room went dark. Billy opened his eyes and got to his feet, feeling Steve doing the same next to him. If Billy had thought Steve was unsteady on his feet _before_, it was nothing compared to how he was now. He leant heavily on Billy, who instinctively found himself putting an arm around him as the two took in the carnage before them.

Beyond the cage, the Demogorgon lay dead in the middle of the room, its corpse still smouldering. Surrounding it was a bloodbath of dead Russian soldiers, the copper smell staining the air. Stepanov stood behind it, the last survivor of the vicious attack, courtesy of Steve and Billy. His rage, quiet but barely controlled, utterly unhinged as he took in the sight of his dead comrades.

A door beyond the cage burst open, and the three surviving occupants of the room turned to see Ozerov stumbling into the room. He looked completely unfazed by the sight of the dead soldiers, but he took in the sight of Steve and Billy in the cage, looked down at the dead Demogorgon, and then at Stepanov.

The rage turned the whites of his eyes black. He crossed the room, rounding on Stepanov.

“_Idiot!_” Ozerov snarled.

Stepanov instantly felt himself on the defensive. His hackles raised. He had _warned _Ozerov about this, he had _warned _Ozerov that keeping the two Americans together was a risk that could result in them working together to bring down their entire operation. At least _one _of them was partly responsible for what had happened in America the first time, and Stepanov had been _right. _They had tried to assassinate Ozerov, tried to destroy the Gate, and then they had somehow worked together to take on the monster, releasing it and requiring its extermination.

There was no value that Stepanov could see in allowing the Americans to get close enough to each other to use them against each other that was worth what it had already cost them.

He opened his mouth to tell Ozerov this, his rage undeniable –

A hand closed around his throat. He saw Ozerov haul him off the ground, feeling his feet dangle below him – the air wasn’t getting into his lungs – his windpipe was being crushed – he couldn’t even choke out a protest to this inhuman strength –

The last thing he ever saw was the blood vessels in Ozerov’s eyes go black as the last of his breath left his body.

Ozerov let Stepanov fall to the floor, his body crashing down next to the others. Steve and Billy backed up against the concrete wall, Billy still supporting Steve. Steve’s eyes were wide, trying to ignore the pain in his wrists as he felt the blood trail down his arm, his eyes fixed on Ozerov.

Ozerov looked over at them, taking in their looks of defiance, a strange, sinister smile creeping over his face. Steve’s heart began to pound with the same paralysing fear he had felt when the lights had just started flickering. That smile on Ozerov, on _the Mind Flayer, _after what they had just done, could not mean anything good.

Ozerov walked slowly up to the locking mechanism, still hanging from where it had been torn out of its bracket. He held the small plastic box in his hand for a moment, looking at it with some amusement. For a moment, Steve had a heart-stopping flash of fear that Ozerov was going to open the portcullis again –

“It is time for you both to learn,” Ozerov said coldly, though an edge of satisfaction lingered in his tone, “that when one of you defies me, the _other _will now suffer your punishment.”

He barked an order towards the door he’d burst in through a moment earlier, and the door opened, revealing more soldiers. Ozerov pressed one of the buttons, unlocking the cage and allowing four of the soldiers to enter. Two of them grabbed Billy, pulling him away from Steve. Steve stumbled before the other two soldiers caught him, holding him by his upper arms.

Ozerov walked up to Steve, cupping his chin in his hand.

“I know you no longer fear death, _Butterscotch,_” Ozerov said coldly, and Steve could _see _the Mind Flayer in his eyes. “I know you no longer fear pain. But I think…”

Ozerov glanced over his shoulder at Billy, who was fighting the soldiers holding him, struggling against them as he looked back at Steve, worry clear in his eyes.

“I think that you will fear _this._”

-:-

It was about eight in the morning when Paul pulled his black Mercedes into the driveway of the new residence of Henry Cristall. Henry worked as a mechanic – or at least, he _had _worked as a mechanic until he’d found himself being forced out of his shop. Paul recognised the name from multiple bills he’d received from Steven, asking for money to pay for repairs to the red BMW that now sat in his own driveway. Paul had never told Steven this, but he’d always been deeply appreciative for the discount listed at the bottom of the bill, courtesy of Cristall doing his nephew’s friend a favour.

It wasn’t much of a lead, but asking Tommy Hagan’s uncle exactly what had caused him to sell his workshop was a starting point.

He knocked on the door, ignoring the slightly confused look he received from Henry as Paul offered him his most genuine smile.

“Mr Cristall,” Paul said, offering his hand out to shake. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting, but I’m-”

“Mayor Harrington,” Henry finished for him, confusion still evident in his voice. “I know. What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping we could talk,” Paul said. “Inside. It’s been brought to my attention that my predecessor abused his power to make it untenable for you to stay in your old property. I was hoping we could talk about rectifying that situation.”

The confusion didn’t vanish from Henry’s face, but surprise sent his furrowed eyebrows up.

“Uh…” Henry said, looking around. “Sure, I mean… uh… come in…”

He awkwardly gestured past him down the hall, trying to be as welcoming as possible. He honestly hadn’t expected his morning to take _quite _such a strange turn this early, but he was not exactly unhappy about the Mayor taking a personal interest in his case – he’d been appealing to everyone who would listen about it, trying to find a way to get his property back now that his house had been seized by the government.

Paul walked through the house towards the kitchen, where Henry gestured at a seat at a round wooden table.

“Coffee?” Henry offered as he went to pour himself a cup.

Paul shook his head with a small smile. Unbeknownst to Henry, Paul had already lost track of the number of coffees he’d had that morning. His previous evening had consisted of him arriving home about half an hour later than he’d told Linda he would, his head still full of the conversation he’d had with Tommy Hagan. He’d spent most of the rest of the evening in his study, thinking about everything that he’d ever been told about Starcourt, from Hopper’s explanation of Steven’s death through to Kline’s wild conspiracy theories shot at him across a table in Indiana State Prison. He’d finally come up to bed at about two o’clock in the morning, disturbing an extremely put-out Linda, before failing to sleep for three hours. He’d eventually climbed out of bed at five o’clock in the morning and made himself a pot of coffee that would normally make four cups, and when he’d finished that, he’d made himself another pot before leaving the house. He’d finally ended up in his office at six thirty, making himself what he’d guessed was his sixth or quite possibly seventh cup of coffee before tracking down Tommy Hagan’s uncle and driving out to visit him at the earliest time he deemed acceptable. So, as tempting as Henry Cristall’s coffee smelled, Paul declined for his health as much as anything else.

“I’ve got to say, I’m really surprised that you’ve decided to take an interest in this now,” Henry said as he busied himself adding cream. “I’ve spent months calling everyone I could think of to try and, you know, _talk _to someone, but all my calls just end up going round in circles.”

Paul watched him with his carefully studied neutrality. He needed to have a word with his secretary about making notes of all the calls that came in. Henry turned and sat down at the table with a steaming mug between his fingers.

“I can only apologise,” Paul said. “The change of administration has left a lot that needs repairing. Mayor Kline hurt a lot of people.”

Henry gave a bitter laugh. “You’re telling _me,_” he snorted, sipping on the coffee. “I’ve been the one who’s been making these calls for _everyone._”

Paul frowned at that. “What do you mean, _everyone?_”

Henry studied him, the confusion evident. “It wasn’t just _me _Kline screwed over,” he explained, looking incredulous. “It was _everyone _in that area around the power plant. Starcourt Industries bought it all – they were _talking _about plans to build another mall in East Hawkins, but none of us saw any plans or blueprints or anything. They just bought the land and went to Kline when some of us refused to sell. Kline was in their back pocket all the time – or _they_ were in _Kline’s_ back pocket, I don’t know. But whatever they did has screwed up everything anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Paul asked, frowning slightly.

Henry looked at him with that same, slightly incredulous expression, as though Paul was being incredibly stupid. “The _power outage?_ Don’t you remember? A few days before Independence Day? Took out most of the town?”

Understanding blossomed in Paul’s mind. “I… I wasn’t around for that.”

He didn’t quite meet Henry’s eyes, feeling strangely afraid of the judgement that lurked there. He _hadn’t _been around for the power surge, for _whatever _had happened in this town in the days leading up to Starcourt. _He hadn’t been around for Steven’s_–

No. Not right now.

“Well,” Henry said, snatching back Paul’s attention. “That was just the start of it. They’re saying there are problems with the power lines. The Department of Energy told me that’s why they’re not releasing the land. Even those people in the area who managed _not _to have their property taxes jacked up to the sky have been having problems – you know, temperamental power surges, localised blackouts, and so on. And it all started around that time. I don’t know _what _Starcourt was doing there, but it’s screwed up everything.”

“Who else do you know who lost land?” Paul asked, his curiosity piqued.

Henry shrugged. “I know they bought Hess farm, and there are a couple of others. But it’s not even about the _land _anymore. I lost my whole _livelihood. _The money I got for the sale was _fair, _but I haven’t been able to find anywhere else to buy where I can set up my business again. I’ve been out of work for months, taking odd jobs here and there, but nothing _steady_. I either want my business back or I want some kind of compensation. I’ve spoken to lawyers, they say there’s nothing _illegal, _but…”

Henry gave a bitter laugh. Paul understood his frustration – he had usually been on the opposite side of this argument while he was a lawyer, defending the companies that did this sort of thing, but he knew the frustrations well enough.

“It wasn’t enough to cover what I _lost,_” Henry said. “Even if I _did _get the property back, after Starcourt has screwed around with it, I don’t know if it’d ever be the same.”

Paul ran a hand through his hair, fixing a small lock that had trailed down over his face. In the lethargy of his morning, he’d forgotten to fix it in place with any sort of product, and was now facing a day of his hair getting perpetually untidier.

“As I said before,” Paul said softly, allowing an edge of sympathy into his voice. “Mayor Kline hurt a lot of people in this town. I want to fix what he’s done. I _want _to find a way to give you your property back. It will take some time, particularly if the Department of Energy has work to do on the power lines there. It may be the case that there’s a danger to life, in which case there needs to be some work done. But I’ll look into it. I’ll get answers about what’s going on.”

A smile broke out over Henry’s face at Paul’s words. After so many months of calling around, demanding for anyone to take him seriously, he felt reassured that at last, someone was going to _do _something about this injustice.

Paul, on the other hand, was suitably intrigued, particularly by the information that despite all these land seizures, nobody had ever seen any plans of any kind for what exactly Starcourt Industries had planned to _do _with this land. His gut told him that there was more to this than simply land seizures, an expansion to a second mall. Purely from his background, Paul _knew _how risky it would have been to build a second mall so close – and so _soon _– to the first mall. In a town as small as Hawkins, where business dried up altogether for the local shops in the month or so before Starcourt’s name became tainted with tragedy, it made no _sense _for Starcourt Industries to invest so much money in a second site, build a second mall, and employ an entirely new staff when they had already completely dominated the market. And the fact that nobody had even _seen _the plans for this…

Paul felt himself coming to a grim conclusion. It was time to see Kline again.

-:-

Billy fought tooth and nail against the men dragging him out of the room.

He caught glimpses of Steve behind him, fear evident on his face, watching Billy. Steve wasn’t struggling like Billy was, his energy utterly spent, but he was pushing against them, voicing his own protests about what was happening. The most he could manage was the occasional jerk of his body, pulling at the restraints around his wrists.

Restraints that Billy did not seem to have.

Any dreams of autonomy that either of them had held, even as recently as a few hours ago, were gone, vague half-formed memories that were disappearing in their waking hours, the nightmare that was their reality. Even something as desperate as a noble death was a luxury neither of them were granted, and Billy knew that they were about to pay the price.

They were led back out into the stairway. Steve suddenly realised that they were at the very bottom of the long stairway that he’d found himself constantly led down. He’d never been to the bottom before – the room they’d used to interrogate him was somewhere above them, in amongst the square of light that glimmered above his head. Billy and Steve exchanged nervous glances as they found themselves being led back up towards the light.

They never made it that far, however.

They climbed one, maybe two storeys out of a number beyond count before Ozerov led them through a door. It was not a route either of them had ever been before, twisting down a black passage with no obvious light to speak of before they came into another room that sent shivers down both their spines.

There were four lamps mounted on stands, very like the ones Steve had seen Hopper use when they’d set up the Byers’ shed. They were all focusing on a single point, the light glinting off two chains dangling from a bracket mounted in the ceiling. They ended in manacles, suspended some seven or eight feet in the air. Dried blood was spattered over the floor, remnants of past prisoners brought to this place. Possibly the _only _remnants.

Billy wondered if he’d completely lost his mind, because that same overwhelming urge to laugh at the cliché of it all took over. The Soviets had evidently watched one too many movies.

Any thoughts of laughter, however, were extinguished a second later at the feeling of being pulled towards the centre of the room.

“_No!_”

The shout came from Steve, who had found renewed strength in him. He was struggling, blood still dripping from his scratched arms in their shackles, throwing as much of his body weight around as he could at the prospect of being dragged towards the chains in the centre. Billy felt a roar of rage rear up inside him, a furnace amplified by a blast from a set of bellows. He fought once again against his captors as they dragged Steve away –

_Back towards the wall…_

Steve wasn’t struggling out of fear for himself.

“Steve, it’ll be okay,” Billy tried to say, using the same words Steve had used to reassure _him _all those weeks ago at the prospect of Steve being taken to be interrogated. The words held no more meaning now than they had done back then – _less _meaning, even; Steve knew better than Billy did what was about to happen to him – but Billy still clung to them, a desperate lifeline to reassure Steve.

“_No – _get off me – _get away from him!_”

“Steve, it’ll be okay, I’ll be okay-”

They dragged Steve back towards a wall, hidden in shadow. His pale face stood out starkly in the shadow as Billy was dragged into the light. Billy struggled against the hands pushing him as in the darkness he saw two figures tying Steve to the wall – _he hadn’t noticed the chains there, either –_

He almost didn’t notice the block that was suddenly slammed down on the floor in front of him. A large wooden step about a foot high, easily removable –

Billy almost tripped over as he was pushed onto the step. He just about managed to recover his footing –

The soldiers twisted his arms behind his back, yanking them up to an angle his shoulders were never meant to hold them at, putting constant strain on his muscles –

Steve’s shouts intensified in the darkness as he felt metal shackles fastened around his wrists above his head –

Something hard smacked into the back of his knee a second later, knocking him completely off-balance. He let out an involuntary groan as his shoulders took his entire body weight, hanging from his wrists at a completely unnatural angle. He struggled to find his footing again – the ground didn’t seem to be there anymore –

He glimpsed two of the soldiers carrying the large wooden block away, leaving him to dangle with his feet a foot off the ground. Even in those few seconds, the strain on his shoulders was agony, even more so now that there was no relief to be found.

Billy felt something slicing away at his clothes, tearing away the cheap grey fabric, leaving him completely exposed. He could just make out Steve’s pale face in the darkness, his protests desperate, _begging. _Not for _himself, _Billy knew Steve had long since stopped caring about his own wellbeing, but for Billy. For Billy, Steve would take on monsters from another dimension. For the ones he cared about, Steve would take on horrors and tortures that would turn him into a wreck of himself, only to put himself back together to do it again.

For Steve, Billy could endure this.

He _had _to.

For Steve.

The first blow cracked across his back – a metal pipe or something that split his lower back open. He bit back a cry, only letting out a grunt through gritted teeth.

_For Steve._

The next blow struck across his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. He gasped, fighting to force air back into his uncooperative body, but it was okay. He _had _to be okay.

_For Steve._

He felt a blow smack across the front of his knee. It bent back at an unnatural angle, and he let out a groan, but it didn’t matter that the joint might have been damaged, it was fine.

_For Steve._

The blows kept coming. He finally let out a cry as he felt his first bone break – a sharp smack of metal against his ribs sent something cracking and he screamed – _his shout mingled with Steve’s desperate begging for them to stop – _and the floodgates opened. He couldn’t bite back anything more, every blow sending fresh agonies through old ones. The irony of his screams tearing at his broken rib was not lost on Billy.

His skin broke open when at least one of the objects raining blows down on his body was replaced with something sharp. Billy didn’t have it in him to open his eyes to look, but he felt it methodically slicing open the skin around his shoulders. Each slice sent fresh waves of agony down his body, the weight pulling his skin apart at the seams carved into his flesh.

The cuts got deeper, slicing open muscle. The blows still didn’t stop – his screams didn’t stop – he didn’t know how long it had been since they had started – he could still hear Steve’s desperate protests beyond his field of vision – his vision was getting blurrier –

The first blow to his face sent a splash of colour across his eyes – there was nothing beyond the colour – he couldn’t make out the words Steve was saying anymore, but the intensity spiked, lancing through him in his agony – he had to take this, he had to endure this for Steve –

A new type of pain broke through his haze, a localised burning pain that seared through his flesh – Billy’s eyes snapped open and he pulled his head with more effort than he’d ever thought possible around to his side to see the glowing end of something red-hot. His head swam – _he didn’t ever remember it being so heavy_ – the brand danced through the air before –

An animalistic, inhuman scream was wrenched through his body as the brand was thrust into his side. Memories that were not his own of this very thing happening to someone else – _something else _– flashed through his mind – his mind that could barely form thoughts anymore. The smell of burning flesh, that same sickly sweet, acrid smell he’d first encountered when Steve had tried to incinerate his own leg tickled Billy’s nostrils –

His body buckled, the small contents of his stomach that his body couldn’t cling to fast enough rising into his mouth –

A blow to his stomach – possibly with a fist – he didn’t know anymore – sent his body convulsing, swinging slightly from the restraints at his wrist – his mouth opened, and the smell of sick filled the room – he let out a gasp of pain – _a whimper? _– he just started to feel the tears on his face – _but they were covering his face, they must have started a while ago _–

His own screams finally drowned out Steve’s as the brand was shoved in between his shoulder blades – his body instinctively curled around away from it – the strain on his shoulders was too much – _too much – TOO MUCH –_

He let out an agonised scream as he felt his shoulders finally pop out of their joints, but if his body had hoped for relief, it found none. He forgot Steve – he forgot why he was doing this – he forgot why he was here –

There was nothing left except for the pain.

-:-

Steve fell sideways against the restraints around his ankles as he saw Billy lose consciousness at last. His voice was hoarse from screaming, demanding, pleading, _begging _for Billy’s life, for some small inkling of _mercy _to cross their minds. The figures, the _uniforms _that were causing Billy so much pain could not care, could not be _human _anymore. The Mind Flayer may have got to them, it may not have, it did not make much of a difference. These people didn’t see Billy as human anymore. They didn’t see Steve as human anymore. The pair had forfeited that right when they had unleashed a Demogorgon upon their comrades.

Shouting was doing nothing but shredding his own vocal cords. He didn’t have the energy in him anymore as the figures dancing around Billy with knives, bats, metal pipes, brands and whatever else they were using to slowly break him apart started to pause, taking a brief moment to collect themselves, to check on Billy’s unconscious figure. One of them retrieved something from the shadows beyond. A second later, a white cloth was brought under Billy’s nose and Billy gasped, his head snapping upwards.

His eyes were wild, he was hardly there, looking wildly around to see what was happening. He wasn’t lucid, his eyes panicked, pupils dilated in fear.

Billy didn’t manage to articulate a word as the brand resumed its position, this time brushing gently against the skin on Billy’s chest. Billy let out a noise that sounded like a wounded animal – Steve suddenly remembered Billy telling him that often the less serious burns hurt the most – before the brand was pulled away and pressed against Billy’s stomach. One of the soldiers lit a cigarette, taking a few puffs of it before pressing the lit end against the top of Billy’s inner thigh. Steve couldn’t contain the sob that escaped his lips at the action, painfully aware of his own tears pouring down his face.

There was nothing he could do.

Billy slipped in and out of consciousness as his torment went on. Often, the soldiers didn’t notice when he did so – they _certainly _hadn’t picked up on the difference between Billy’s brief moments of lucidity and the moments when he was lost in his agony. But _Steve _noticed. Steve noticed how occasionally Billy’s eyes would try and find him in the darkness, only to hold his gaze for as long as he could before a blow to the side of his head would send him back into the depths of his pain. Steve knew where Billy’s mind went when it wasn’t with him – he’d _been _there himself – a place where all there was around him was pain, where the words that left his mouth were so inconsequential, where the world fell away into fire and blood and agony beyond words.

Steve lost track of time. He could measure it by the state of Billy’s body – he forced himself to keep track of the number of bones that broke – the moments where the cries lanced through the room to leave some part of Billy hanging at an unnatural angle, the weight of his body pulling him down, ripping the cloven bones apart. When they noticed Billy lose consciousness – when the screams stopped for long enough that _they _would stop, the Russians would get that same strange cloth doused in – Steve didn’t know what – and wave it under Billy’s nose. There was no respite for him. There _could _be no respite for him.

Billy’s life didn’t matter anymore. Not to the Russians, and not to the Mind Flayer. Ozerov had made it clear that this punishment was for Steve. The Mind Flayer had taken what it wanted from Billy and left him to die long ago. It had just taken Billy a little while to finally give up his own life.

And then the inevitable came.

Steve didn’t know how long it had been – how long Billy’s ordeal had lasted before Billy didn’t wake anymore. It was long enough for his skin to have turned black, blood running down the length of his naked body to drip steadily from his toes into a puddle. He’d stopped screaming – they’d _both _stopped screaming a while ago. The sounds Billy made were inarticulate grunts and groans, lacking any energy of his previous cries of agony. Those had stopped a few minutes ago – though to Steve it could have been hours – and all that had been left had been the sounds of whatever instruments of torture the Russians had access to against Billy’s flesh, and the soft _drip, drip, drip _of Billy’s blood onto the concrete floor.

Steve had stopped hearing his own ragged sobs.

The Russians went and retrieved that white cloth – that magical cloth that brought Billy back to the world of the living. They held it under his nose, waiting for him to –

Nothing happened.

Steve, still lying on his side, suddenly felt something lance through his chest. He struggled up to his feet, pushing himself as best he could with his hands still in chains. He found his feet, taking a step, wanting – _needing _– to get to Billy –

His feet pulled at the chain holding him back, sending him crashing to the floor. His hands caught under him as he raised his head to see the Russians bring back the wooden step to unchain Billy’s hand. He went crashing to the floor.

Ozerov – who had simply _watched _for the entire time – gestured towards Steve. One of the soldiers walked over to him and finally unchained his legs, and Steve was instantly on his feet again, staggering over to Billy and dropping to his knees beside him.

Steve could feel his heart shatter inside his chest.

Billy’s face was swollen, black and purple mottling his skin. There wasn’t a single spot on it that was a healthy colour. His cheek was split, his nose running, blood trickling down from his hairline. It continued from there downwards. His shoulders were the dark – so dark and swollen and broken that if Steve hadn’t known better, he would have said that the Mind Flayer was still in him, but this wasn’t his blood vessels running black, this was just bruising – bruising beyond anything Steve had ever seen. The deep cuts into his muscles were wide from the strain of being hung by his wrists, pulling open the wounds. His arms hung at odd angles, his leg bent awkwardly to one side, his wrists were scraped raw from the metal restraints that had held him up. His chest still rose and fell, but it was laboured, a death rattle that Steve was all too familiar with from his own experiences.

There was nothing of Billy left.

A sob choked Steve, fresh tears pricking his eyes as he took in the state of the man on the floor in front of him. He turned around desperately, looking imploringly at the soldiers around him.

“Help him,” Steve gasped. “_Please,_ help him!”

He was met with stony-faced silence.

“_For God’s sake, help him!_” Steve begged. “_PLEASE!_”

Steve raised shaking hands to gently touch Billy’s face. His bloody fingertips brushed against Billy’s swollen, disfigured face, tears running down his own cheeks.

“Billy…” he gasped.

He looked back up at the ring of soldiers, standing in the shadows just beyond the circle of light. In the darkness, he desperately sought out Ozerov’s face.

“You saved _me!_” he begged, his voice little more than sobs. “Help him! _Please, _I’ll do anything!”

A strange light came into Ozerov’s eyes. He stepped closer to the light, the edge of the beams catching his face.

“If we helped him,” Ozerov said softly, “would you help _us?_”

Steve looked down at Billy’s face, nodding desperately.

“If we saved him,” Ozerov’s voice grew colder, _triumphant_, “would you obey us?”

Steve’s breaths were shaking as he stared down into Billy’s face. He was nodding, still nodding, because _all that mattered was that Billy was saved._

“Would you help us in America if we saved his life?”

And there it was. The demand, the final piece of the game that Ozerov had been playing. The last move in this game of emotional chess. Letting Steve and Billy get close enough that they could use one against the other, to control Steve when even the Mind Flayer itself had failed. And Steve had never stood a chance, he hadn’t even known what the true game was until that very moment, that moment of his inevitable loss, because there was nothing he had left. There _was _no choice for Steve.

He could not lose Billy.

“Please…” Steve said softly as he looked up with wide, brown eyes at Billy. “Save him.”

A single nod from Ozerov was all it took. The soldiers moved back into action at the request of their new leader now that Stepanov was gone. They pulled at Billy’s ankles, dragging him along the floor leaving a trail of blood in the concrete. Steve was left alone in the circle of light, slumped on the floor, his hands suddenly empty as he watched them take Billy from him.

“If you go back on your word, Butterscotch,” Ozerov said softly, “there will be no mercy for him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I low-key want to see the Demogorgon battle brought to life in some form or another (HINT HINT SEASON 4 I WANT HOPPER FIGHTING A DEMOGORGON)...
> 
> But seriously though, those poor boys. I'd say I was sorry, but I'm not. 
> 
> (Also, I am painfully aware that the purple passage at the very end of the chapter about Ozerov's little game is an example of terribly unsubtle writing, but I couldn't quite resist sticking it in there. Anyone who wants to learn more about writing should maybe NOT take tips from that particular passage...?)


	31. Part 3 Chapter 10: Anything For You, My Dear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
1) Extremely graphic depictions of self-harm, including a depiction of a method  
2) Depictions of denial and unhealthy coping mechanisms  
3) Mentions of suicide (not graphic, but discussed, with a mention of a possible method by one of the characters)
> 
> Please proceed with caution, when I put these trigger warnings that I’m really not messing around. I put them here for a reason – I don’t want anyone to find themselves sent back to a dark place that they’re not able to deal with because of what I’ve been writing. You may have noticed that I’ve jacked up the rating to M – that is not because it’s about to get explicit, it’s because this has gotten a bit too dark for a T rating. (An argument could be made that I should have done this 20 odd chapters ago, but we’re here now…)
> 
> Also, there is a non-explicit sex scene at the end. I’ve done my best to keep it a solid PG-13 rated scene because I’m REALLY not comfortable writing smut so yeah, it’s not explicit, but it’s there. You’ve been warned.
> 
> UPDATE: Having now written the rest of the story, I can say with the benefit of hindsight that for me, this is the darkest chapter in the story. It’s bleak as hell, but it gets better (relatively) from here on out.

Indiana State Prison had not improved since Paul’s last visit.

He’d called ahead about visiting Kline, only to have the prison bureaucracy dance around his request so impressively he’d wondered if they’d been choreographed by the American Ballet Theatre. Still, never one to be denied, Paul had learnt that often the best way to get answers is to simply go and ask for them in person. So here he was, currently demanding a meeting with the warden to demand a meeting with Kline.

Unfortunately, he’d discovered that his power as Mayor of a small town seemed to carry less weight here than it had in Hawkins, and significantly less weight than he’d carried as managing partner of a large law firm. Which was why he was sitting in a bleak waiting room that seemed to epitomise despair.

“Mr Harrington?” a voice asked.

Paul looked up to see a young man in a uniform, his grey shirt denoting him as a prison guard. He gestured for Paul to follow him. Paul got up with no small amount of annoyance – he was a busy man, and he did not appreciate this petty bureaucracy leading him around in circles when all he wanted was a simple conversation with someone. Kline would listen – particularly given that Paul was now prepared to listen to him.

He was led into an office, where a man in an ill-fitting suit and the weight of the world on his shoulders was busy sifting through files. He looked exhausted – it was exactly the look that Paul himself had seen looking in the mirror in the days after Steven’s funeral, faced with the prospect of going back to work but _knowing _that he wasn’t ready. It was the look of a man who had far too much to deal with and no energy left to deal with it.

“Mr Harrington,” he said with a brave attempt at a smile that Paul didn’t bother to return. “Come in, have a seat.”

Paul looked at him as he sat down, draping his long coat over the back of the chair while studying the man’s face. He looked jittery, slightly uncomfortable by Paul’s presence.

“Carl McNamara,” he said, offering his hand across the table. “The poor bastard in charge of this place.”

He chuckled at his own joke. Paul gave a small smile to acknowledge it before getting straight to it.

“I was hoping to speak to someone incarcerated here,” Paul said. “I believe he may have information pertaining to an ongoing issue in my town.”

A brief frown crossed McNamara’s face. “Are you a _lawyer?_”

Paul gave a wry smile. “Formerly,” he answered. “I’ve recently been elected Mayor of Hawkins. I was hoping to speak to my predecessor, Lawrence Kline. He was incarcerated here on corruption charges.”

McNamara’s expression saddened. “You should have called ahead,” he said softly.

Paul bristled. “I _did. _I played pinball with your office for over an hour yesterday on the phone. Nobody gave me answers, so I came to _get _them.”

McNamara looked awkwardly around the room, clearly very uncomfortable. “I don’t know who you were speaking with, but no call crossed my desk, and I don’t think the rest of my staff could disclose it. But I wish it _had _come to me, I could have saved you a trip.”

Paul’s expression hardened into a glare. “What do you mean?”

McNamara sighed and looked down at the desk, before meeting Paul’s eyes. “Kline was found dead in his cell a few weeks ago.”

Shock shot through Paul’s body. He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness in his gut – a twinge of sadness that was quickly snuffed out a second later. Kline didn’t deserve his grief. He’d save that for his friends – for his son.

He leant back in his chair and ran a hand over his face.

“How did he die?” Paul asked. He kept his tone clinical.

McNamara sighed again as he leant back in his chair. “The same way they always do,” he shrugged. “Suicide, we reckon. God knows he hurt enough people – _shit, _sorry – was he a friend?”

Paul gave McNamara a strange look. He studied the green eyes across the table, taking in McNamara’s haggard appearance.

“No,” Paul finally said, not breaking eye contact. “No, we… we _used _to be, but we-”

He broke off, the wry grin returning to his face at the thought that crossed his mind.

“We had a falling out,” Paul laughed bitterly. He wondered if there was an award for understatement of the year.

McNamara seemed to pick up on Paul’s inner conflict. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how these things go. It’s not easy when a friend gets convicted-”

“Don’t go there, please,” Paul shut him down.

McNamara had the decency to back off. “Well, I expect the guilt got to him,” he said gently. “He’d been struggling for a little while with what had happened.”

Paul sighed, running a hand over his face again. “Would it be possible to get a copy of the report into what happened?” he asked softly, not looking at McNamara. “I know it’s prison policy to have an inquiry into any prisoner deaths.”

McNamara looked uncomfortable at that. “It’s highly unorthodox,” he said awkwardly. “You’re not his lawyer, you’re not family, you’re not police… I could ask my superiors, maybe see if they’d be willing to send a copy over to your local police chief, he could pass it on to you…”

The idea of _Jim Hopper_ getting a copy of the report sent a violent spark of irritation through Paul. Without any warning, he stood up, sweeping his long trench coat up off the back of his chair.

“Don’t even bother,” he snapped as he walked out.

-:-

Steve didn’t bother trying to sleep when they finally threw him back in his cell. He had no idea where Billy was – if he believed Ozerov, (which was a very big _if,_) then he suspected Billy would be in the hospital ward he himself had woken up in all those months ago. The doctors here had brought him back from the brink of death. He clung to the hope that they would do the same for Billy.

All Steve had to do was be a good little boy until they brought Billy back.

His first test came at the end of the night – a contender for the longest night of Steve’s life. It hadn’t quite taken the top spot; there were too many Upside Down-related contenders for it to stand any _real _chance, but it was more of a plucky underdog, thrown into the mix to keep the competition varied.

The key scraped in the lock and the soldier Billy had knocked unconscious with the wrong end of a gun walked in, carrying the usual tray of water and breakfast. There was a white dressing on the side of his head and a sinister glint in his eye. Steve tried to school his expression into a neutral one as the soldier put the tray on the floor. The look in his eyes led Steve to believe that the soldier wasn’t quite done.

Sure enough, the soldier then fumbled with his fly and started to urinate all over the tray.

A ghost of a smirk appeared on the soldier’s face as he stepped back to watch Steve expectantly.

“You know, the piss bucket’s over there,” Steve said, gesturing towards the small metal bucket in the corner.

The soldier didn’t understand a word; not that Steve was expecting him to, but he looked over at the bucket, understanding the meaning.

“_Vykusi,_” the soldier said, gesturing towards the food. Steve understood the instruction to eat, but didn’t immediately leap to do so.

This was an unexpected but unsurprising consequence of Billy and Steve’s actions. They could not simply knock out three guards, lock them in a cell, attempt to assassinate a Colonel and blow up a highly volatile interdimensional laser, set a Demogorgon loose on a roomful of soldiers and witness the death of the Comrade General without expecting some deterioration in their treatment. And with Billy gone, Steve would be getting the brunt of it.

“_Vykusi!_” the soldier snapped again. Steve still didn’t move, glaring up at the soldier.

Eventually, another soldier appeared over the first soldier’s shoulder. He looked curiously at the first soldier, wordlessly questioning the hold-up.

“_On ne budet yest'!_” the soldier explained exasperatedly.

The second soldier smiled wordlessly at the first, a strange light coming into his eyes. He pushed open the door, muttering something Steve couldn’t hear to the first soldier before walking in.

Steve suddenly felt himself being grabbed by the chin, a thumb and an index finger being forced into his mouth and between his back teeth. He struggled, raising his hands, trying to push the fingers away, but another hand grabbed the back of his head, tilting his head back. He made a noise in protest, trying to bite down on the fingers in his mouth, but they were too far back, pushing between his gums behind his back teeth, forcing his jaw apart –

A split second later, the water was being poured into his mouth. Steve’s struggles became more violent – he spluttered – _he was back on that bench again_ – but the water wasn’t choking him – his mouth was being forced shut –

A hand pinched his nostrils together, pressing down over his lips. Another hand was massaging his throat gently, easing the water down – he could taste the urine in the water – he could hardly breathe – he gagged – _it wasn’t working – it was still in his mouth – he needed air –_

He forced himself to swallow it and opened his mouth with a gasp, inhaling air once more. His eyes were wide, his heart was thudding as he breathed. He gagged, urine-stained water splashed over his face.

“_Vykusi,_” the second soldier said threateningly. Steve didn’t need telling again.

-:-

Paul parked the car outside the mansion on the outskirts of town, steeling himself to go inside. He hadn’t said a word to the current resident in months, despite once knowing everything about her. He turned off the ignition but left the keys in, hand still frozen on them.

_Just drive. Just drive away. You don’t owe her anything. Just drive away._

The urge to leave, to never speak to her again was overpowering. It had been what had prevented him from coming to see her for two days. He flicked the ignition back on –

And promptly turned it off again. No. He _needed _to do this.

He needed to know what, if anything, she knew.

He got out of the car quickly, as though he was worried that if he hesitated for another second, he’d lose his nerve. He slammed the door shut, his hand white knuckled around the door handle. He took a deep breath before turning and walking up to the door.

He pressed the doorbell without letting himself think too hard about it. The ever-unflappable Paul Harrington reduced to a nervous wreck at the prospect of –

The door opened to reveal Winnie Kline, who gave him a confused look.

“Paul, what are you doing here?” she asked, visibly annoyed.

“I heard about Larry,” he explained. It came out fast, blurted out before he could catch the words in his mouth and form them into a more elegant and sympathetic sentiment.

Winnie’s eyes saddened a fraction at the mention of her late ex-husband before they hardened into a glassy glare.

“Why didn’t you _tell _us, Winnie?” Paul asked, succeeding in a slightly more sympathetic tone – although it was still far more accusatory than he’d hoped.

Winnie’s eyes widened incredulously. “Why didn’t I _tell _you?” she repeated. “Are you _seriously _asking me that, Paul?”

Paul knew when to keep his mouth shut.

“Well, it _might _have had something to do with you and your wife not saying a goddamn word to me since he was arrested,” she mused sarcastically. “Or maybe it was due to the fact that you made it extremely clear behind our backs that you held him responsible for your son’s death – or _perhaps _it was because you repeatedly vilified Larry publicly while going after his job, holding him up as the monster responsible for Starcourt to the point where I was _attacked on my goddamn doorstep _by some punk kid like something out of a horror movie!”

Paul leant his weight backwards, favouring his left leg. He pushed a hand through his hair, looking at the ground.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, looking up at her. “I know I took it too far. I never meant for you to get caught up in it.”

The anger that had filled Winnie a moment earlier deflated at his words. She passed a hand over her eyes, pulling herself back into the house and looking at the floor.

“No, you didn’t,” she said clinically. “Your kid died in that explosion. Larry paved the way for it to happen. Thirty people who shouldn’t have died did. I get it. I was angry too. I was filing for a divorce when he…”

She put a fist to the side of her neck and pulled it upwards, tilting her head sideways.

“Was that how he…” Paul asked, trailing off.

Winnie shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. “Don’t know, and I don’t really care. I realised I hadn’t loved him in a long time when he got arrested. Which – _God, _realising that was such a relief. It’s been hard _enough_ wondering how much of my life was bought with blood money. I don’t know _what _I would have done if I’d _loved _him.”

Paul found himself understanding Winnie’s dilemma far better than he’d expected. That twist of guilt he’d felt, sickening him to his stomach in his apartment in Indianapolis while his secretary was all but forgotten, questioning if _he’d _been a part of what had happened, if the money he’d given to Kline, if the benefits he’d received in return had all cost the lives of some of the people he’d cared for most in the world.

“I’m sorry,” Paul muttered.

“Don’t be,” Winnie said shortly. “He deserved what he got. I should have known better.”

Paul sighed. “Winnie…” he began, trying to think about how best to phrase it. “I saw Larry a couple of months ago…”

“That was _brave _of you,” she gave a soft scoff.

“I saw him in… while he was in prison,” he explained. “He mentioned some land deeds.”

He watched Winnie carefully for a reaction. She blinked, looking at him blankly, her expression morphing into exhausted confusion.

“What?” she shook her head exasperatedly, a mixture of annoyance, incredulity and bemusement at the subject change.

Paul took a deep breath, still struggling to figure out the best way of phrasing this. “He mentioned that there were some land deeds he’d been keeping safe about Starcourt. I don’t know what they are, but I wondered if you knew anything about it?”

Winnie’s incredulous look was back. “I don’t know anything about… _land deeds…_ or anything to do with Starcourt. I didn’t even know we were _getting _a mall in Hawkins until Larry invited me to the grand opening. You’re welcome to come in and look in Larry’s old office if you want, but…”

A strange light came into her eyes, something suddenly occurring to her.

“Actually,” she continued, her tone changing abruptly to one of realisation. “If he was keeping them in his _safe,_ Chief Hopper probably has them.”

Paul was taken aback by this. “_What?_”

“Yeah, he… He came by the house, a couple of days before Starcourt… _you know…_ I came back in the evening to find Larry handcuffed to the bed with the safe wide open and completely cleared out. Apparently, Hopper and…”

She clicked her fingers a couple of times, her face screwed up as she struggled to remember.

“…I forget her name,” she continued. “Crazy woman. You know?”

Paul did not.

“Well, _anyway, _they came around and took everything from the safe,” Winnie finished. “Larry didn’t tell me what was _in _the safe, I guess it _could _have been land deeds, but when I finally found him that evening, he was asking for a phone. _Real _upset, he was.”

“I can imagine,” Paul said in a brave attempt at dry humour. His mind was in freefall.

So Hopper had known –_ something. _He had known enough to come to Larry Kline’s house and raid his safe a matter of _days _before Starcourt had blown up. Paul had always held a burning torch of anger at Hopper for failing to protect Steven, but if he’d _known _about Kline’s involvement in Starcourt, then he hadn’t just failed to save Steven in a crisis – his incompetence went as far as letting this tragedy occur in the first place. He had been onto Kline’s duplicity, and had failed to stop him – to stop _it _– before it took Paul’s son from him.

“Thank you, Winnie,” Paul said, almost in a dream.

She seemed to pick up on Paul’s shift in demeanour. “Uh… you’re welcome,” she said hesitantly.

“If you… remember anything else,” Paul stuttered, “about Larry, or what he was doing, maybe something he _said…_ Will you let me know?”

Winnie looked at him blankly. “Um… sure…”

“Thank you,” Paul said with an attempt at a smile. He turned to walk back to his car –

“Byers!” Winnie suddenly called out.

Paul turned around, looking confused.

“Hopper was with the Byers woman,” Winnie explained.

Understanding blossomed over Paul’s face. He gave Winnie another attempt at a smile, succeeding slightly more in this attempt.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “You’ve been very helpful.”

-:-

Steve stopped counting the days.

It had started out as simply forgetting to make a mark on the wall, but a few days in, he couldn’t remember whether it was three days or four, Steve lost track. His stomach was tying itself up in knots – he didn’t know how long it had been since they’d taken Billy away – he didn’t _want _to know how long it had been since they’d taken Billy away. If it had only been a few days, then it stood to reason that he hadn’t been brought back – he’d been badly hurt, he just needed time to get better.

So it was only a few days. It was _always _only a few days. And Steve deliberately stopped counting them.

The days themselves hadn’t changed much since Steve had agreed to do what Ozerov asked. He was still woken to a tray of food and water – now accompanied by one of the few changes to his regime of his guard pissing all over it – before he was taken to a shower, blasted with cold water, and led to the workshop, where he was instructed to build a new electromagnet.

Now with a sense of familiarity of what the instructions were, he set about doing what he could. He was making good progress – clearly Billy had taught him well, because it was beyond him how much he’d done in just a few days –

_Because it had only been a few days –_

The construction of the electromagnet was the only real measure of time Steve had. And he _hated _it.

Steve had tried to be a good little boy in that time. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize Billy’s safety for the few days that he’d been gone. He hadn’t asked – he hadn’t _dared _to ask about Billy’s wellbeing. Ozerov would hold up his end of the bargain, and Steve would hold up his. The whispers that Steve desperately tried to drown out in his head when he was left alone with his thoughts – that the magnet was getting bigger, that there was a possibility that the Russians hadn’t saved Billy, that the mere _idea _of Billy was all Ozerov needed to keep him in line, to keep him _obedient _– were starting to get louder, and Steve’s counter-arguments were getting weaker with each passing day. Not that there had been many days that had passed.

The magnet was getting bigger because he was better than he’d been when he’d first arrived in Russia. He worked faster now, understood more of the Russian, he was less at a loss.

The Russians had saved Steve. Steve had arrived in Russia in _far_ worse shape than Billy had been, hadn’t he? The Russians had saved Steve’s life, they could save Billy’s.

Ozerov would _know _that Steve wouldn’t turn on his home if he didn’t know for certain that Billy was still alive. Promises and ideas would not be enough to keep him in check for long.

And besides: it had only been a few days, anyway.

Steve was on edge. The inaction, the normality to his routine was lulling Steve into a false sense of security. He felt as though something had shifted, something had _changed_ after he had begged Ozerov to take care of Billy, but the fact that _nothing _was different – apart from his new addition to his breakfast – left Steve constantly on edge. Coupled with the complete absence of Billy, Steve felt stuck in limbo, just _waiting…_

The outer framework of the magnet had been finished according to the specifications – _and Steve must have become really good at reading Russian to have translated the first few pages and built them in just a few days, because it had only been a few days, it had _only _been a few days, it made sense that Steve was still on his own because it. Had. Only. Been. A. Few. Days _– when Ozerov came to inspect the workshop.

This, in and of itself, was extremely unusual. It immediately had Steve on edge – every time Steve had seen the routine of the workshop deviate, it usually meant Steve was about to encounter a wave of pain and suffering. Ozerov himself coming to the workshop was altogether novel – the last time Steve had seen Ozerov in the workshop was when he had escorted Steve here on his first day in Russia.

Steve tried to keep himself looking busy, but never once took his eye off Ozerov. He watched as Ozerov went to talk to Portnov, still in charge of the workshop. Steve felt a strange sense of trepidation. He tried to overhear something – _anything _– whether he understood it or not, but they were too far away – they were talking too quietly –

He fought the urge to move closer, to try and find an excuse to get within earshot. He didn’t want to get caught out by Ozerov – not when Billy’s fate was so tenuous – _if it hadn’t already been decided in his absence – no, it had only been a few days_ –

The urge to move closer proved to be entirely pointless, however, because a second later, Portnov pointed Ozerov towards Steve. Steve instantly backed up, standing up to face Ozerov. He felt his hackles raise, immediately defensive. He was _not _going to turn his back on Ozerov.

“Butterscotch,” Ozerov said genially, in such a way that sent shivers down Steve’s spine. The smile on his face never boded well. “I was wondering if we could have a talk.”

Steve’s heart thundered in his chest. In his experience, Ozerov did not _ask _to talk. He usually found himself being dragged out of wherever he was when Ozerov decided to interrogate Steve, and the talks generally consisted of a lot of pain. However, with Billy gone and Steve otherwise powerless to help him – _if he was not already beyond help _– Steve gave a stiff nod.

Ozerov smiled at him, a smile that on any other person might have looked warm, if it weren’t for the fact that Steve knew better – _God, _did he know better.

“Where’s Billy?” Steve finally asked. The words fell from his lips before he could catch them, blurted out in a desperation he didn’t know he felt – _because it had only been a few days_.

Ozerov’s smile didn’t change.

“Is he alive?” Steve asked. He was aware that his desperation for _some_ sort of answer was starting to show, but it didn’t matter. Ozerov already knew what Billy meant to him.

“I think it is time you proved your loyalty to me,” Ozerov said coldly. “Come.”

Ozerov led the way out of the workshop. Steve hesitated for a second before a hand shoved his back, a soldier following after them, pushing Steve to keep up. They caught up with Ozerov as he led the way into the office that Steve and Billy had first met Stepanov. It occurred to Steve that there was some shift in dynamic between Ozerov and the soldier. He finally took in Ozerov’s appearance, the subtle changes to the decorations that adorned his uniform.

Ozerov had evidently been promoted after the death of Stepanov.

The soldier stood by the door, a silent sentinel, permitted to observe but not to interact, there only to make sure that Steve behaved. Steve was left standing in the middle of the room, looking warily around the office as Ozerov poured a measure of vodka from a decanter in a cabinet. He pressed the glass into Steve’s hands. Steve wasn’t sure how much more uncomfortable and on-edge he could be.

“So tell me, Butterscotch,” Ozerov said. “What can we expect when we arrive in Hawkins?”

Steve kept his expression blank. He looked down at the glass in his hand, the clear liquid lifting a smell of almost chemical potency, alcohol of a stronger proof than anything Steve had encountered in his albeit few but active years of drinking.

“It is not poisoned,” Ozerov said. “You should know by now that I would much rather keep you alive.”

Steve had vivid memories of Billy’s eyes, tainted black, holding pure rage as he screamed at him for daring to die on that memorial in the Upside Down. He gave Ozerov a carefully studied look, trying to keep his face neutral as he took the smallest sip.

He was right in his assumption that the vodka was a stronger proof than anything he’d tried before – his father’s liquor cabinet tended to stock spirits that capped themselves off at forty percent. There was a bottle of Old Navy gin that he’d brought back from a business trip to London which was a bit stronger but Steve had never quite acquired the taste for gin, and even the small sip of that spirit that he’d tried paled in comparison to what was currently sitting in the glass in his hand.

“You have questions of your own,” Ozerov pointed out. “Answer mine and I will consider giving you the answers to yours.”

_Simple. Prove your loyalty by selling out your friends and I will tell you whether Billy is alive or dead. Or you could roll the dice and refuse, but if Billy _is _alive, then he will suffer for your failure._

_It had only been a few days. There was still a chance Billy was alive, after all._

_There _was _no choice for Steve. Not anymore._

“Hawkins will probably be alert,” Steve said, trying to keep his tone clinical. “I haven’t been there since the start of July, but people know what’s going on.”

“_Everyone?_” Ozerov asked. “Does _everyone _know?”

“Enough people do,” Steve said, looking over to the bookshelf to his right and back to Ozerov, meeting the blackened eyes.

Ozerov – _the Mind Flayer _– didn’t smile. “What about the laboratory?”

Steve frowned slightly, confused.

“_Hawkins Laboratory?_” Ozerov elaborated. “What happens there?”

Steve looked down at the glass in his hand, thinking hard. On the one hand, the temptation to lie was overwhelming – to say that Hawkins Lab was fully functioning, a powerhouse of defence against the Mind Flayer, an impenetrable fortress that had been honed to stop all things Upside Down. On the other hand, Steve got the feeling that the Mind Flayer was yet to unleash its fullest power onto Hawkins. To tempt fate, to lie about the nature of the opposition that the Mind Flayer might face in Hawkins in an attempt to deter it, could be to invite the Mind Flayer to create its own insurmountable opposition. Coupled with the Russian forces, Steve suddenly started to doubt the United States military.

And, quite frankly, Steve was not prepared to take a chance with Billy’s life. He still didn’t know what intelligence the Russians had on Hawkins. Steve couldn’t even remember what _he’d _told the Russians about Hawkins in a pain-fuelled haze. If he rolled the dice and was caught lying, then once again, Billy would find himself suffering.

He found his gut twisting and clenching. The illusion of choice was gone.

“The Lab shut down,” Steve explained. “Back in November last year. I don’t know about now, but when I left, it had been deserted ever since.”

Steve _really _didn’t like the look on Ozerov’s face at that news.

“And what do you think the likelihood is that it would be reopened?”

Steve’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “What?”

“Would it ever be… _occupied _again by your government?”

_Would anyone dare go back after the Mind Flayer had let a pack of Demodogs loose on Hawkins Lab?_

“No,” Steve said. “The Lab shut down after a scandal broke involving a cover-up.”

Ozerov gave a soft laugh at that, looking over to the soldier to give him permission to join in. The soldier gave a small smile, simply indulging his superior despite the entire conversation lost in a language he didn’t understand.

“Ah, Butterscotch,” Ozerov said. “Is this not _easier?_ I have been trying to tell you since the beginning that it is easier for us both to work _together_ on this. We can sit and discuss this over a drink, civilised, like _people._”

The irony of the comment was not lost on Steve. It was unsettling, sat across from the Mind Flayer, for once making no move, no _intention _to hurt him. The pretence between them had fallen away, only kept up for the sake of the soldier in the corner of the room. Steve didn’t bother wasting his breath trying to fight anymore, trying to convince the Russians that Ozerov was a monster. It suited the Russians to believe that Ozerov was simply a ruthless, power-hungry commander. He was prepared to do whatever it took to get the Soviets back on United States soil, to take down anything and anyone that stood in their way. The twisted games he was playing with Steve were finally starting to pay off – Steve didn’t have a choice in the matter, not with Billy’s life so precariously hanging on to his decisions.

Besides, even if Steve _had _thought he could convince anyone that Ozerov was possessed by an interdimensional monster, the limited Russian Steve had picked up didn’t quite cover the vocabulary he’d require to explain it.

“Where’s Billy?” Steve finally asked again. Since they were civilised ‘_people_’ now.

Ozerov smiled that same warm, sinister smile again. “All in good time.”

“No,” Steve dared to say. “I want to see him.”

The smile dropped from Ozerov’s face slightly. “All in good time,” he repeated.

“Is he alive?”

“That is _enough, _Butterscotch,” Ozerov said, closing down the conversation. His tone was superficially calm, almost friendly, but the tiniest flash of anger simmered below the surface. Steve suddenly felt a twist of guilt in his stomach, regretting his bravery, the audacity of his defiance. He could not simply _demand_ things from Ozerov – not with Billy gone, missing for an indefinite amount of time _that had only been a few days. _Steve’s only power to keep Billy safe – _because with the state Billy had been in, a few days would not be sufficient time to recover to keep himself safe _– was for Steve to obey. To behave. To submit to Ozerov’s demands.

Ozerov barked a command at the soldier standing by the door at a speed that Steve could not register. He suddenly had the glass being pried from his fingers before he was being roughly manhandled out of the room. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Ozerov following him. A hand gripped his shoulder in a tight vice, and Steve was led back through the passages he’d just walked before being led back into the workshop. Ozerov followed, his appearance with Steve instantly commanding the attention of everyone in the room.

It took a single nod from Ozerov to Portnov for the workshop supervisor to bellow the order for the prisoners to line up against the wall. Steve looked between Ozerov and Portnov, wondering if he was included in that order – _because what sick, twisted game were they playing now, what was his part in it, he really didn’t want to mess up because if he messed up then they might hurt Billy, if he was still alive, but it had only been a few days so surely he must still be, if the Russians had kept their promise to save him _– but the hand never left his shoulder.

Portnov walked up and down the line of prisoners, before finally finding the person that he’d been looking for, shoving him out of the line-up. Steve’s stomach clenched at the sight of him.

The person Portnov had pushed forwards was a kid, barely older than Dustin. Fourteen, maybe fifteen, it wasn’t inconceivable that he was a few years older, made to look younger by the fear on his face, the lack of food, the terror in his eyes that lacked the hopelessness that most others in the workshop felt.

Steve had never seen him before. This wasn’t altogether a surprise, he could barely pick out any of their faces while he and Billy worked off in their own world, isolated by the language barrier, but there was a certain naivety that the boy held, a certain confusion at his own selection that gave Steve the impression that the boy hadn’t been here very long.

“Watch,” Ozerov breathed to Steve. _As though Steve could do anything else._

Ozerov walked up to the boy. The fear in the boy’s eyes mounted with every step, every click of hard heels on the concrete floor. Steve felt his own heart beat faster, unable to tear his eyes away.

The confusion in the boy’s eyes grew as Ozerov stood in front of him, looking down at him. Steve watched as the boy looked up, confused.

Ozerov smiled at the boy, that trademark warm smile that Steve had a Pavlovian response drilled into him to fear. He knew what was coming – the same thing that Steve had seen on his first day. That boy was going to die like Charlie had, falling against the wall for a crime so inconsequential that it would barely register on anyone’s radar. And the kid had no idea what was coming.

Steve considered intervening. He considered the odds of him making it to Ozerov without being intercepted, to intercept the gun, but the stark reality of it was that Steve would stand more chance of being shot by an overeager soldier than making it to the other side of the room. And wouldn’t _that _be a crime that would piss off Ozerov.

But something _else _held him back. Something _else_ stopped him from trying to do the right thing beyond a regard for his own life – _not that he’d held it in much regard for a long time _– something that the Russians knew would keep him under control far better than any lock or chain ever could.

They still had Billy.

If Steve died, _Billy _died. If Steve misbehaved, Billy would suffer. Ozerov had made it abundantly clear that Billy would not be spared if Steve fell out of line, that he would kill Billy if that was what it took to make Steve fear Ozerov. And so the mere _idea _that Billy was still out there was once again all it took to stop Steve from trying to prevent the course of events from unfolding.

So he stood there and watched as Ozerov nodded at two soldiers.

He stood there and watched as the soldiers forced the boy to his knees.

He stood there and watched as Ozerov took out his pistol and aimed it straight at the boy’s head.

“_Pozhaluysta,_” the boy was saying. Steve didn’t need a degree in Russian to know that he was begging for his life. “_Pozhaluysta, ne delay mne bol'no. pozhaluysta ne ubivay menya-_”

Steve felt his gut clench tightly as the gun cocked.

“_Pozhaluysta-_”

Steve closed his eyes.

“_POZHALUYSTA!_”

The gunshot never came. The room was filled with the manic sound of Ozerov’s laughter. Steve opened his eyes to see the boy, still on his knees, sobbing uncontrollably while Ozerov stood over him, laughing. The pistol lowered, leaving the boy sobbing.

“_Spasibo,_” the boy was saying over and over again.

Ozerov walked away, still laughing, his eyes coming to rest on Steve. Suddenly, Steve felt his heart thundering in his chest once again – it was beating faster than it had ever done in his life – Steve felt his vision start to swim as he realised –

_Oh God._

“Butterscotch,” Ozerov said softly. “I think it is time you proved your loyalty to me once and for all.”

He pressed the gun into Steve’s hands. Steve numbly clutched the gun, his eyes wide, his breath coming fast and shallow. He felt his head shake, his mouth open in horror.

“No,” he breathed. “No – I _can’t-_”

He felt himself being shoved forwards by the soldier behind him. He stumbled, barely catching himself as he struggled to get his feet under him as he was being led towards the boy.

“You were going to kill _me,_” Ozerov pointed out. “How is this so different?”

Steve looked at him, wide eyed, incredulity taking over. _The fact that the boy was human and Ozerov was an interdimensional monster… the fact that Ozerov had done so many things that made him worthy of death… the fact that Ozerov had done so many things _to Steve _that made him worthy of death… the fact that the boy knelt on the floor had never spoken a word to Steve, the fact that Steve didn’t even know the boy’s name, the fact that the boy was Dustin’s age, Mike’s age, Lucas and Max’s age, Eleven’s age, Will’s age, still just a child…_

_But that was the point, _Steve thought to himself as it dawned upon him with sickening clarity. _He needed to prove to Ozerov that he could kill – even someone as young as Eleven – when the time was right._

And now that he was faced with that horrific reality, he realised that he didn’t think he had it in him.

“Do it,” Ozerov said, “and you will see your friend. But if you fail me now, you will never see his body.”

Steve looked at Ozerov with wide eyes, the burning hope he’d so carefully kept alive all this time – _all through these few long days without Billy _– roaring into life. So tentative, so cautious, but still there, daring to _hope…_

“Is he still alive?” Steve asked, his breath shaking with barely repressed fear, worry, trepidation, _hope…_

Ozerov gave Steve a single nod.

And just like that, once again, the decision was taken out of his hands. Because there _was _no choice anymore. Just like he hadn’t interfered when Ozerov was going to shoot the boy, Steve knew now that he couldn’t fail Billy now. Not now that he _knew _Billy was still alive. Whether it had been days, weeks, months or _years_ since Steve had seen Billy, he knew that he would do _anything _to get back to him.

Even if _anything _wore the face of a terrified young boy.

Steve couldn’t stop the tears in his eyes as he looked down at the child. The boy whose face had been so full of relief mere moments ago now looked terrified, the hope dashed from his eyes as utter despair crushed him. His eyes were blue – with his light brown hair, if it had just been a few shades lighter, he could have been a younger Billy – _God, Steve couldn’t afford to be having these thoughts now _– _He had to be strong for Billy – the _real _Billy – he had to do this – he had to – HE HAD TO –_

He turned down to look at the gun in his hands. He tried to drown out the desperate pleas of the boy, tensing a muscle in his temple to send a roaring through his ears. He methodically felt along the gun, hearing a voice _– Billy’s _voice – explaining briefly how this pistol worked.

_Click this to turn off the safety._

Steve fiddled with the gun, waiting for the tell-tale click. With shaking hands, he pointed it at the boy’s head. Tears filled Steve’s eyes, rolling down his cheeks as the boy started pleading for his life once again.

“Keep your eyes open,” Ozerov said softly.

Steve did so, forcing them wider. His breathing started getting faster.

“_Pozhaluysta-_”

Steve took his aim, adjusting his feet like Billy had taught him so long ago in a terrifying rendition of his own home, his back pressed up against Billy’s chest –

“_Pozhaluysta!_” the boy begged.

“I’m sorry,” Steve breathed, his whole body trembling. “I’m so sorry…”

“_Pozhaluysta! POZHALUYSTA-_”

_BANG!_

Despite his footing, Steve found himself staggering back at the gunshot. His breath caught in his throat in a terrifying shudder. He would say he was sobbing, but no noise was coming from his mouth beyond the shaking breath. His eyes stayed wide open as he saw the boy fall sideways –

Something had gone wrong. He’d screwed up somehow, because while the bullet had gone into the boy’s head, he wasn’t dead, his chest still rising and falling as he lay on the floor. Steve was shaking uncontrollably – it was a miracle that his legs hadn’t given out altogether –

“Try again,” Ozerov said softly.

The amusement in Ozerov’s voice sickened Steve to his stomach. He gave Ozerov an incredulous look, utterly disbelieving…

“If you leave him, it will take him hours to bleed out,” Ozerov pointed out, a smirk on his lips.

The horror must have shown on Steve’s face – more so than the horror already there – because an amused smile later, he found his hand being taken in unnaturally cold hands, guiding the barrel of the gun to aim right between the boy’s eyes.

“Keep it straight,” Ozerov coached, a sick, twisted, macabre reminiscence of when the Mind Flayer had coached him on using a gun in Billy’s body to stop him from using the flamethrower. “Take a deep breath and pull the trigger.”

Steve jumped as the pistol exploded in his hand – he hadn’t felt his finger close around the trigger – he hadn’t realised he was doing this – he was shaking too much – his eyes filled with the face of the boy, holes blown into it by Steve –

He didn’t register the soldiers taking the boy’s body away. He didn’t register the looks of horror and disgust on the other prisoners’ faces. His mind was blank, no coherent thoughts forming at all – he supposed he was in shock – he couldn’t think straight – he was staring at that boy’s face – it was just a bloody patch on the concrete floor – his hands were oddly clean –

He was being led away – he barely remembered the journey – he was still on the floor of the workshop – the boy was still in front of him – the bloody patch on the floor was all that was left –

He blinked and the cell came into focus around him. He was still shaking – his legs had given out completely underneath him, folding underneath his body as he found himself collapsed on the floor. Tears were still rolling down his face, his breathing still ragged and desperate gasps.

_How could he possibly live with what he’d done?_

He looked down at his hands. Hands that had moments – _or hours_ – ago taken a life. The boy hadn’t even _done _anything to him, he’d done it for the _promise _of Billy – he was falling apart at the seams –

His hands were too clean. Spotless. The only dirt found on them was lingering dirt that slightly darkened the creases in his knuckles, the dust that settled on the floor being caught up on his skin. If he hadn’t known, there would be no way of telling that he had _blood _on his hands – the blood of a kid the same age as Dustin – he hadn’t even known the boy’s _name_…

His hands were too clean.

He stumbled to his feet, running his soiled hands through his hair, no mark to be left, no blood visible on them to taint anything else. That was wrong. His hands should be dirty, marked, bleeding –

He slammed his fist into the wall – screaming out in pain or frustration or heartbreak or despair or _what, _he didn’t know. It wasn’t enough – it hurt, but it wasn’t enough –

_Not for what he was now._

He slammed his fist again into the wall, this time succeeding in creating a slight graze on his knuckles. It still wasn’t enough –

Another. And another. And another.

His skin broke, tearing away a little more until the skin on the back of his fingers was shredded, marks finally left on the wall. He screamed again – relishing how it tore at his throat – if his vocal cords completely gave out, then that would be good, because then he’d never have to admit it –

His other hand needed to match – both his hands had been on the gun –

He slammed his other fist against the wall – it was too clean – he dragged it through the rough concrete, the coarseness tearing open his skin – but it still wasn’t enough –

He slammed both his hands into the wall, one after the other, over and over again until his body couldn’t take it anymore – some gut instinct refused to damage his hand like that anymore – so he twisted his hands ninety degrees and slammed the side of his fists against it too. He didn’t stop until they were raw, the skin shredded again, screaming – he couldn’t hold back – not now – he didn’t deserve to hold back now –

Tears poured down his face as he relished the blood that started flowing freely from his fists. But it still wasn’t enough – there still wasn’t enough blood on his hands – his palms were still too clean –

He opened his hands and started slamming his open palms on the wall. It lacked the power that the punches had, but his fingers would catch in awkward positions, bending painfully with the force of the contact. The heels of his palms were taking the worst of it, meeting the concrete with the full force of his arms, the weight of his body thrown completely behind every hit. He screamed again, uncaring of how loud it was, uncaring of anything because _nothing mattered anymore._

This was not who he was.

This was not Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington _protected. _Steve Harrington had long since thrown away all self-interest. Steve Harrington guarded those who couldn’t protect themselves. Steve Harrington would do _anything _to keep the kids safe.

Steve Harrington was not a killer.

Tears fell faster down his face as he kept pounding his hands against the wall, his movements getting faster, more frenzied, more desperate because _he was gone._

There was no way he could go back home now.

His legs gave out beneath him as he crashed to the floor, shaking. He kept smashing his hands against the wall, pulling them back. He glanced down at his knuckles; bruised, broken, split, swollen, bloody…

It still wasn’t enough, but it was all he could do. He ran his bloody hands up over his face and back through his hair again, relishing in the blood that finally coated his face and felt tacky against his scalp at the motion. It wasn’t enough, but it was appropriate. His face crumpled, his eyes closed against the world as he screamed, and screamed, and _screamed._

He didn’t want to know who this monster was.

He didn’t know who he was anymore.

Steve Harrington was gone.

-:-

Hopper did not like being woken on his day off by the constant ringing of the phone.

He liked it even less when he saw that it was six thirty in the morning.

Groaning, he pushed himself out of bed, shuffling to find some towel or something to cover himself. El would probably have been woken by the phone – she slept light at the best of times – but she wouldn’t want to come out of her room. It was _far _too early on a Sunday for that.

It was far too early for any decent human being to be calling. Hopper swore to himself that if this was about anything less than a murder, he’d _make _it about a murder.

“This had better be the single most important goddamn phone call of your life,” he growled by way of greeting.

_“Chief-o!”_

Hopper’s face screwed up in confusion. “Sam?”

_“Sorry, did I wake you?”_

“Do you know what time it is?” Hopper growled down the phone.

_“Sorry, Jim, I just wanted to give you a heads-up about something.”_

“Doc, could this have waited until – I don’t know – _after _I’ve had a shower? It’s my day off.”

_“Sorry, Jim, but this is important. I think someone’s onto Starcourt.”_

And, fuck, wasn’t it just _too fucking early _to be thinking about Starcourt?

“What?” Hopper groaned. “Who?”

_“Your new Mayor.”_

Oh, Jesus shitting Christ. It was _definitely _too early for this.

_“He’s been calling the Department of Energy pretty constantly for the last few weeks. He finally got through to me, but he was asking about those properties in East Hawkins that Starcourt Industries bought.”_

Fuck.

“Well, what does he know?”

_“Funnily enough, he didn’t go into details, Jim. But if he got to _me…_ Well, then, I’d say he knows more than I’m comfortable with him knowing. I gave him some line about how it was still an ongoing inquiry, but he didn’t buy it. He said he thought that the inquiry was wrapped up. He’s digging – he requested a report on the inquiry so far into the East Hawkins properties, said it was for the people of his town. I told him that it was confidential and that I wasn’t at liberty to disclose it, but he’s not going to stop. I think he’s got a personal interest in this, hasn’t he?”_

A personal interest – that was _one_ way of putting it, Hopper supposed. After his only son was killed courtesy of Hopper leaving him to die, he’d turned his entire life on its head to try and fix what had happened, running for Mayor apparently for the sole purpose of becoming a permanent thorn in Hopper’s side. That came under the blanket term of ‘personal interest’.

“Jesus,” Hopper sighed into the phone. “Well, what do you want _me _to do about it?”

_“I need you to make it go away,” _Sam said over the phone. _“You’ve got as much to lose from this as I do. You know why we can’t let the truth get out.”_

Hopper’s brain groggily caught up with the words. “How do you want me to do _that, _Doc?”

_“I don’t know, maybe talk to him?”_

Hopper’s face screwed up in confusion. “Wait… you want me to go to the man that’s already suspicious of you and tell him to stop looking into Starcourt because there’s _definitely _no conspiracy or anything to be found, in spite of the fact that he’s not actually said one word to _me_ about this? You want to run that past your inner psychologist there, Doc?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment.

_“Just make it go away, Jim.”_

There was a click and the line went dead. Hopper looked at the phone incredulously, before slamming it back into its cradle.

Fuck Sam Owens. Fuck early mornings. Fuck Starcourt. Fuck evil Russians. Fuck the Upside Down.

And most of all, _fuck Paul Harrington._

-:-

Steve endured twenty-four hours of utter Hell.

He didn’t sleep – every time he closed his eyes his mind plagued him with visions of brown curls around lifeless blue eyes, holes blasted open in his face – _he didn’t remember the bullet wounds being that big, the boy had definitely _had _a face after Steve was done with him – God, was that what he was now?_

His body, numb with exhaustion, would keep his eyes closed for as long as Steve could, until the visions dared to start moving independently, at which point Steve would pry them open, screaming again. He was fairly certain that he’d been screaming solidly through the night – he certainly _felt _like that –

The relief he’d felt to no longer be alone with his thoughts when the key scraped in the lock had Steve sobbing – _for something new and different –_ and the guard placed the tray on the floor in front of him. Steve gratefully took the water, letting it slide down his abused throat, providing what little relief could be offered. If the guard noticed his ruined hands, he didn’t say anything, nor did he mention the blood all over the wall where Steve had repeatedly broken his hands against it like waves on a rock. If Steve had been slightly more present in the moment, he might have noticed that for the first time since his horrifically misguided escape attempt with Billy, the guard hadn’t pissed all over his breakfast, but Steve was barely able to stop choking on the sobs that were bubbling up in his throat long enough to eat, let alone take in his surroundings.

Sheer routine had Steve pulling off his clothes before the daily shower. He might have been imagining it, but the other prisoners might have been giving him strange looks, fear, horror, _disgust _in their eyes. Whether it was real or simply his imagination reflecting his subconscious, Steve didn’t care, because no matter what it was, it was deserved. He _was _horrifying.

He ended up being led into the workshop with everyone else and was left staring numbly at the blueprints before he remembered that he was meant to be working. His hands were still shaking beyond his control – he could barely hold the pencil, let alone any of the tools.

In the back of his mind, he heard a voice that sounded like it might have been Billy’s – or at least, using Billy’s words – that was gently coaxing him through his actions. Words that he must have heard before, when he was too far out of himself to have any real degree of control over his actions, echoed in the back of his mind, where Billy would pick up the slack while covering for Steve with the Russians. Now Steve had to cover for Billy. He could not risk anything else happening to Billy because of him. Not now. Not after all he’d given up.

_Pick up the screwdriver, Steve._

_Just turn it this way, Steve._

_Do the same thing over here, Steve._

It was, quite frankly a miracle that Steve made it through the day without completely breaking down in a very visible way. If any of the soldiers noticed the tears on Steve’s face, the way his hands shook, the way he just kept screwing the same screw into the machine for over an hour because his hand kept slipping, he kept messing up the angle, he kept dropping the screw, he kept dropping the _screwdriver_, they didn’t comment. Some thin veil of protection granted to him by Ozerov’s blessing kept him from too much scrutiny.

The order to line up against the wall proved remarkably uneventful. Any thoughts of disobedience of any of the prisoners had effectively been quashed by the events of the previous night. Watching a child get shot in the middle of the workshop for no tangible reason had crushed any thoughts of rebellion in any of the prisoners.

Steve found himself led back to his cell, walking the hallways in silence. The guard at the door of his cell gave him his usual filthy look of pure loathing – like he would love nothing more than to feed Steve to a Demogorgon if it hadn’t gone so catastrophically badly for the last person who’d tried – before opening the door and pushing Steve inside –

Steve’s heart almost gave out.

His reward for last night’s actions sat in the middle of the cell, a look of pure relief on his face.

“Hey, Steve,” Billy breathed, looking just as relieved as Steve felt.

Steve stood there, completely numb with shock. He wanted to smile – _God, he wanted to smile _– but he could feel the tears welling up in his eyes, the ball of emotion welling up inside his throat. He was shaking again – not the tremors that had wracked his hands, but his whole body, his legs threatening to give out at the relief that Billy was _here…_

His knees finally gave way.

He all but threw himself at Billy, not caring about dignity, not caring about anything beyond feeling Billy in his arms, against his chest, burying his face in his neck as he gasped out his relief.

“Thank God,” he breathed, feeling Billy wrap his arms around him and just _hold _him. “Thank God – thank God – _thank God!_”

He didn’t care that Billy could probably feel his tears against his neck – he could feel Billy’s head mimicking his own movements, he could feel Billy pressing his face into the crook of his neck, he could feel Billy’s own tears against his own skin. He squeezed Billy tighter in his arms, unable to control the wave of pure emotion that was engulfing him.

“I thought you were dead,” Steve choked out.

Steve felt Billy smile against his neck. “I’m okay.”

Which was the biggest lie Steve had ever heard since Billy had told him that he’d be okay just before he’d been strung up and used as a human punching bag.

Steve found himself melting into Billy’s arms, relief washing over him like nothing he’d ever felt before. He pulled his face out of Billy’s neck and finally took a good look at Billy beyond the fact that _it was him, it was really him._

Billy had a crooked smile on his face as he looked at Steve that didn’t quite bely the fear and worry that mirrored Steve’s own. The bruises on his face were still fading, the cuts where his skin had broken open slowly turning into scars.

“They brought me back here and you weren’t here,” Billy said, a sadness in his eyes that reminded Steve that Billy had probably gone through much of the same worry and terror as Steve had in his absence. “I didn’t know where you were, and I thought…”

The sentiment was left hanging in the air between them. It didn’t need to be said. They both knew better than anyone else the fear that absence and solitude held.

“I woke up a few days ago,” Billy said softly. “Someone said that they only saved me because of you.”

The tears that had permanently taken up residence in Steve’s eyes over the course of the last twenty-four hours fell down his cheeks again.

“I couldn’t let you die,” Steve explained. “You were barely breathing when they were done with you. You’d been gone for so long; I would have done _anything_ to save you.”

Billy looked down at the ground between them, pulling back slightly.

“Was that what they’d do to you?” he asked, not meeting Steve’s eyes. “When they’d take you away?”

Steve shook his head, casting his eyes at the ground as well. “It was never that bad,” he said softly.

Billy gave him a sympathetic look that Steve didn’t meet, looking down at his own hands, twisting in and out of themselves. Billy’s eyes drifted down to Steve’s hands, bringing his own to meet them, before he finally saw the ruined mess that they were.

“Hey,” he said sharply, concern colouring his voice as he put them in his own with the gentlest of touches. “What happened?”

Steve tried to bring them back. “It’s nothing…”

Billy didn’t let Steve pull them back into himself as he cradled them gently in his own hands, his sleeves falling back to expose the raw strips on his wrist from where the manacles had held him to the ceiling. He ran a calloused finger over Steve’s knuckles in the gentlest of touches, looking at Steve’s face as it clenched involuntarily in pain, but no sound left his lips.

“Steve…” Billy breathed.

Steve clenched his eyes shut, letting the tears fall again. He could feel the sobs closing up his throat – _because how could he explain this? How could he explain what a monster he was? How could he explain what he’d done in Billy’s name?_

“I…” Steve began, his voice thick. “I said I would do anything to save you… But even _I _didn’t know what that meant…”

Fear knotted itself in Billy’s gut as he looked at Steve, who was refusing to meet his eye.

“Ozerov asked me to work for him…” Steve choked out, sobs coming thick and fast between his phrases. “I told him I would… And I guess he didn’t believe me, because yesterday…”

Steve took a deep shuddering breath, only noticing then what a wreck he was.

“Yesterday… he asked me to prove my _loyalty_… He got this kid… _God, _I don’t even know his _name…_”

Steve looked upwards at the ceiling, at the single fluorescent bulb that hung above them.

“He told me to _shoot _this kid…” Steve explained, his words barely intelligible between his sobs. “I didn’t want to – he was barely older than Max – and Dustin – and all the others – but I _guess _that was the point-”

He broke off, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

“And then Ozerov told me that you were _alive_…” he sobbed. “It was the first time since that day that I _knew _– and he – he told me that if I shot him, I could _see _you again – and I-”

He finally met Billy’s eyes, his sobs stilling, held in his chest as he took in Billy’s expression.

_Horror. Disgust._

_Horror at _him.

“I know you hate me for it,” Steve gasped. “But I couldn’t – I couldn’t let you die, Billy, I-”

Any further protests were cut off as Billy leant forwards suddenly, catching Steve’s lips in a desperate, passionate kiss. The breath left Steve’s lungs and he was left in shock as Billy pulled back, looking at him with a fire in his eyes.

“I don’t hate you, Steve,” Billy breathed. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop you from going through that. But I will _never _leave you alone again, Steve. Do you hear me?”

Fresh tears overtook old ones on Steve’s cheeks as he nodded dumbly. Billy caught his lips in a kiss once again, his hand messing into Steve’s hair as he held him close. He felt Billy’s fingers from his free hand start to pull at the shirt, undoing the front of it. Steve felt his own hands doing the same to Billy, trying to pull it off, but the constant tremor in his fingers took from his dexterity.

Billy pulled back from the kiss just long enough to breathe a suggestion at Steve.

“Let me,” he gasped, before pressing his lips back against Steve’s.

Billy undid the front of the shirt and pulled it completely off before slipping his hand underneath Steve’s undone shirt, catching him in the small of his back and pulling their chests together. Steve could feel Billy’s chest rise and fall frantically, breathlessness taking over him in the same way that it had taken over Steve. Billy’s hands finally pulled off Steve’s shirt before he gently lowered Steve down, his bare back pressing against the concrete.

“Is this okay?” Billy asked, leaning on top of him, pulling back slightly, waiting for Steve’s permission to continue.

Steve looked up desperately into Billy’s piercing blue eyes as he nodded.

“I – I _need_ this, Billy,” Steve breathed. “I really, _really _need this.”

Billy’s face broke into a hesitant smile.

“So do I,” Billy breathed back.

Steve let out a gasp as Billy caught his lips in a kiss again, meeting it and rising to it as he finally gave himself completely, body and soul, to Billy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I did tell you that it wasn’t going to get explicit. Apologies if this somehow went beyond PG-13 rated sex scene, but yes, I’m not comfortable writing smut, particularly since I am not a gay man with any real first-hand experience in that particular department of sex. If you want smut, maybe find another fic, there are some really good ones out there that I can recommend in this fandom/pairing, often with a much healthier relationship than this fic has (because let’s be honest, two guys hooking up in a place where they lack any kind of autonomy over their own lives after one of them was possessed by an interdimensional shadow monster who made him try and kill the other may not entirely be the basis for the healthiest relationship…)
> 
> With regards to Steve’s self-harm, that was, once again, extremely hard to write. I’ve seen plenty of people go through that kind of destructive behaviour, I’ve dealt with those sorts of feelings myself, and through a combination of a lot of things, I’ve come out on the other side. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from both perspectives, it’s that friends would much rather have you come to them with any of your problems, big or small, and be a part of helping you than stand by and watch you deal with it on your own. Once again, I’m happy to be an anonymous ear if anyone wants to talk about anything.


	32. Part 3 Chapter 11: Back In The U.S.S.R

Steve felt light-headed as he lay on the concrete floor next to Billy, their fingers tangled together. Their clothes were discarded in a heap – Steve was fairly certain his leg was on either his shirt or his pants, but he would check in a moment. He would _need _to check in a moment – the rush he was feeling would not be enough to stave off the cold of a Russian winter.

Billy lazily adjusted himself, curling in slightly towards Steve and propping his head up on his arm as he looked down at Steve. His blonde curls hung in a tangle around his face, a messy halo of untamed flyaway hair capturing the dim light in the cell. Steve turned to look at him slowly, meeting those piercing blue eyes that looked down at him with care and a hint of triumph.

“That was…” Steve breathed, words failing him. “…_Thanks_.”

The look in Billy’s eyes found some amusement at that, Billy’s lips quirking into a crooked smile.

“You thank _all _the girls after they fuck you?” Billy smirked.

Steve returned the smile. “Yeah, well… it’s polite.”

Billy rolled his eyes amused, leaning back to reach his shirt and pulling it back on. He got as far as putting his arms in the sleeves before lying back down and gently pulling Steve over onto his chest. If Steve had any energy, he might have protested, or quite possibly found his own shirt to wrap around him, but he was content to just curl up in Billy’s arms, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest beneath his cheeks.

Steve softly found his own fingers tracing across the deep pink scars that marked Billy’s chest. The remnants of the bruises were still there, the swelling mostly gone but the discolouration remaining. His heart felt like cracking as he pulled away from Billy under the pretence of finding his clothes. He pulled his shirt on and eventually extracted his pants from under his leg before stilling, frozen with his back to Billy’s face. He could feel Billy’s eyes boring into his neck, watching him, he could almost feel the concern radiating from Billy.

“I’m sorry,” Steve finally said. “I’m so sorry I let them do that to you-”

“Steve-”

“I should have stopped them,” Steve ran his hands through his hair, burying them in the tangles close to his scalp.

“Steve,” Billy repeated softly, his fingers gently touching the small of Steve’s back. “It wasn’t your fault. You _know _that, right?”

Steve turned his head over his shoulder, further away from Billy.

“And what about _yesterday?_” Steve said bitterly. “They’re – they’re going to make us _work _for them now – it’s not going to just be _me, _they’ll find a way to make _you _do it, too…”

He broke off, taking a shuddering breath. Billy stayed silent, watching Steve’s shoulders trembling as they rose and fell with each breath.

“I’m sorry,” Steve finally choked out. “I’m so sorry, Billy…”

Billy pushed himself into a sitting position, shuffling closer to Steve. He moved his hand up Steve’s back to press into his shoulder, gentle but firm.

“Steve,” Billy breathed as he leant his head forwards, his breath catching the occasional stray strand of Steve’s mop of dark hair. “You… You mean more to me than _anyone _back home. You know I don’t have any real love of Hawkins. I don’t owe shit to anyone back home, not to Susan, not even to _Max _– I sure as _hell _don’t owe any loyalty to my _dad_… I – I meant what I said. I’m not leaving you like that ever again. If you go and work for the bloody Soviets to keep us alive, I’ll come with you. I’m not about to lose you – I’m not about to _risk _losing you.”

Steve’s response lodged in his throat. He knew what he _wanted _to say – how the period where he’d been forced to consider that Billy was well and truly gone had been the hardest few days – or weeks – of his life, how he’d let his entire grip on reality slip to the point where he’d felt like he was going insane with denial because the reality that Billy could be gone was more than he could handle, that he didn’t know _how _he would cope if Billy was gone because Billy was _all he had left in the world_… but the words wouldn’t come. Something held him back from saying any of this – the fear of what it meant, the horrors he would commit to prevent that reality from occurring – the horrors he _had _committed already – scared Steve into silence. So instead, he turned back to look at Billy, taking in the messy blonde mane and beard – the latter of which was getting impressive – and leant against him.

-:-

They both knew something was different from the moment the door opened the next morning.

Steve disentangled himself from Billy the moment he’d heard the key in the lock, shooting upright into a sitting position. He hadn’t managed to sleep – too scared of the nightmares, he’d spent the night with Billy’s head leant against him for a change, his hands nestled in the coarse blonde tangles, watching Billy’s chest rise and fall with each breath, _proof that Billy was alive._

When the door swung open, the soldier that usually brought them their one meal of the day was absent. In his place were four soldiers, two of which carried handcuffs. Steve’s heart started pounding as he felt the metal bracelets close around his wrists with a click, giving Billy a confused look as another soldier did the same to him before the pair were led wordlessly out of the cell.

They were taken to an altogether different part of the base to anywhere they’d been before. They were led into a small, well-lit room with a counter lining one wall and a stack of chairs in the corner. A fireplace was heating the room, a poker sitting in the fire.

The soldiers pulled down two chairs from the stacks before undoing the handcuffs around their wrists. Steve looked over at Billy who gave him an equally blank look.

“Clothes,” one of the soldiers said in stilted English. “Off.”

Billy and Steve shared an extremely confused look before complying. Steve hesitantly started undoing his shirt, watching Billy doing the same out of the corner of his eye. One of the soldiers held out his hands expectantly as Steve finally pulled the shirt off his body, snatching the garment away before walking over to Billy and doing the same. Steve slowly started to remove his pants, his confusion heightening as the soldier snatched the clothes away as Steve handed them over to him before walking out of the room. One of the soldiers followed, leaving Billy and Steve standing there trying not to shiver too obviously as they looked blankly at each other.

The door swung open and Ozerov walked in, followed by a man neither Billy or Steve had ever seen before. They wouldn’t have thought anything of him, putting him down in their minds as another faceless soldier, but for the fact that he wasn’t wearing a uniform – or at least, not the dark khaki uniform that they’d become so accustomed to, nor the grey prison uniform that Steve and Billy had just stripped off. He was wearing all black, a plain black t-shirt with black cargo pants that ended in lace-up boots.

Ozerov smiled at Steve and Billy.

“Sit,” he instructed. “Face the back of the chair.”

It was delivered without any malice or threat, but it unsettled Steve. Despite having long since given up any idea of modesty, he felt completely exposed, stripped of the uniform with no context, no anticipation of what was to come, no _idea _of what to expect. He cautiously complied, straddling the back of the chair, shooting a sceptical look over at Billy.

There was a noise as the man in black opened one of the cupboard doors behind them, but Steve didn’t dare look too obviously. Billy was a little more audacious, casting a glance fully over his shoulder, but Steve shook his head at him as Billy opened his mouth to ask what was going on.

The man in black finally extracted whatever he was looking for in the cupboard. Steve, for the most part, followed the instruction of ‘facing the back of the chair,’ but a buzzing sound started to fill the room. He twisted his head slightly –

“For your sake, I suggest you stay still,” Ozerov said coldly.

Steve’s heart was in his mouth as Billy’s breath hitched – a hand fisted into Steve’s hair, pulling his head up –

– Before the pressure immediately subsided with an upward stroke of the man in black’s hand.

He understood a second later as dark strands floated to the floor, his eyes following them. Billy’s eyes were watching them too. The hand yanked up another section, the electric razor buzzed and another handful of the dark locks fell to the floor around Steve’s feet.

There was no care, no finesse to the job. The man did not seem to be overly fussed about making it neat, simply hacking away chunks of Steve’s hair close to his scalp. The beginnings of the beard were shaved off with slightly more care, but the occasional nick on his cheeks and chin were ignored. Eventually the man in black seemed satisfied – or quite possibly bored – and Steve hesitantly lifted his hand up to feel what was left of his hair.

It was rough, with approximately half an inch of hair left. It wasn’t tidy – some bits were longer than others, and Steve felt somewhat choked at the loss of it. The old moniker of _Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington _had been completely shed, with The Hair now lying on the floor. He chanced a glance over at Billy, who seemed to be getting the same treatment.

Blonde curls joined dark locks on the floor, leaving an equally rough mess on Billy’s head. A stray bit of hair in the centre of his forehead was still long enough to curl, maybe half an inch longer than the rest of his hair. The razor buzzed up the back of Billy’s neck, cutting close to the skin before the man started to shave off Billy’s albeit much more impressive beard. Once again, slightly more care was taken to get rid of all of it, with nicks being far more common on Billy’s face than on Steve’s.

At last, the man in black seemed, once again, either satisfied or bored, leaving a patchy mess of hair on Billy’s head that was between half an inch and an inch thick. Steve glanced over towards him, meeting Billy’s look.

It was only hair after all.

The man in black, however, did not leave. He went towards the cupboards at the back of the room once again before pulling out something. Steve half-glanced over his shoulder to see him stoke the fireplace in his periphery. The man in black handed one of the soldiers still standing guard by the door the item he’d just got out of the cupboard before turning his full attention to the fireplace.

The soldier walked over to Steve before yanking his head back, rough fingers grabbing his cheeks and prising his mouth open. Steve made a noise of protest, his hands coming up to meet the soldier’s as he forced a rubber guard between his teeth. Steve instinctively gagged – it was too big to spit out –

He heard Billy protesting – could see Billy pushing away from the chair only for the other soldier to walk over to push him back down.

“It’s for your own good, Butterscotch,” Ozerov drawled, almost lazily.

Billy’s vocal protests raised slightly – Steve couldn’t make out words – he glanced over his shoulder to see the man in black pull something from the fireplace –

“_Derzhi yego,_” the man in black said. Steve’s heart thundered as the soldier who’d shoved the guard into his mouth moved in front of Steve’s line of vision, hands gripping tightly to Steve’s shoulders and pulling them down against the top of the chair back –

Billy’s protests intensified into a shout –

Steve let out a scream that was muffled by the guard as fire erupted against his right shoulder blade. Something was pressing fire against it – Steve could feel his flesh burning as the pressure intensified – the _heat _intensified –

The pressure let up and Steve was gasping for air against the guard. The soldier in front of him pulled the guard out of his mouth and Steve realised that there were tears in his eyes, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He collapsed against the back of the chair, staring down at the mess of hair at his feet, trying to control his breathing –

A noise to his left tore at his attention –

“Don’t you fucking come near me with that thing!” Billy snapped as the soldier with the mouth guard started walking towards him. Steve cast a glance over – or quite possibly _around _his shoulder – to see the man in black replace the poker into the fireplace, heating it up to become red hot again.

Billy’s jaw was forced apart, Billy struggling enough to require two people. _Knowing _what was coming had Billy fighting against the Russian soldiers tooth and nail, kicking himself back off the chair as he pulled away. The soldiers found some strength to force him down for a moment before Billy swung back an elbow out of nowhere –

Ozerov suddenly yanked Steve back away from his chair before slamming his head down into the hard concrete floor.

“_Enough,_” Ozerov said coldly, looking at Billy.

Billy froze, a burning look of pure hatred in his eye as he glared at Ozerov. Ozerov grabbed Steve by the arm and threw him back against the chair, watching with some thinly veiled amusement as Steve dazedly hauled himself into it, no fight left in him. He could only watch with swimming vision as the soldiers forced the guard into Billy’s mouth before holding him against the chair back in the same way they’d done to Steve a mere moment before.

Billy tried to mask the fear in his eyes with contempt, glaring at the soldiers through the mouth guard before the man in black pulled the brand out from the fire. Steve got the barest glimpse at the symbol which made his stomach churn before it was thrust into Billy’s shoulder blade.

Billy let out an agonized scream as the man held it there for what felt like hours before finally pulling it away. Billy, too, was left gasping for breath as the rubber guard was pulled out of his mouth.

Steve felt his stomach somersault as he glimpsed the symbol burnt into Billy’s flesh – the sickle and hammer that he _knew _was burnt into his own back.

There was no going back now.

-:-

Linda chewed on her tongue as she poured herself a third glass of wine.

The dinner she’d spent most of the last hour preparing was getting increasingly cooler as it sat on the stove, her annoyance manifesting itself only in how tightly she gripped the glass. Thanksgiving was only a few days away and she’d _tried _to tell Paul to at the _very _least take the evening off.

To a certain extent, she sympathised with his predicament. He _was _the Mayor, now, after all, a job for which he had little to no experience, and his idealistic standards for what he wanted to shape the town into were frighteningly hard to achieve. She knew as well as anyone that Paul liked control over his environment, over the departments under him, so it had not come as a terrible shock to learn that he and Jim Hopper were getting along about as well as Johnson and Kennedy. Paul was working around the clock to try and bring almost _every _aspect of Hawkins under his control.

The truth was, though, that Linda was worried about him. It felt to her like she barely _saw_ her husband – not exactly a _new _state of affairs but certainly an unwelcome return to late nights sat at home waiting for Paul to never call, not knowing where he was, before he’d eventually stumble into their living room looking completely exhausted, often after the hour display on the microwave had entered double digits. Linda would then hand him a cold plate of dinner which he’d invariably get irritable about, shoving it in the microwave.

So far, so familiar. It took Linda back to the days before she’d started at Harrington Spencer, the years she’d spent questioning where Paul was, wondering whether she was being paranoid for thinking that he’d _just hired a new secretary after firing the previous one after only a few months, was he with her? _She’d appeased herself back then by checking on Steven, still in his race car pyjamas, making sure he’d done all his homework, or else letting him stay up late watching a movie, even on a school night, just so she wasn’t waiting for Paul alone. This would invariably be brought up after Paul finally came home, sometimes in the small hours of the morning, to find them both on the couch watching the most child-friendly documentaries that were on at half past midnight. Paul would angrily send Steven to bed before the nightly fight would occur in hushed whispers over ruined dinners, spoiled children, absent partners while avoiding the real issue like the plague.

Now, however, Linda didn’t have that company. She didn’t have a son at home with her that she could watch late-night television with, the issues were all on the table, and for all that Paul was doing, Linda _didn’t _get the feeling that Paul was having yet another affair. She knew the signs like the back of her hand, and there was too much that was _different _about this.

For one thing, Paul wasn’t sleeping. He would come in from work late, certainly, he’d eat his reheated dinner like it wasn’t his own fault that it was cold in the first place, before shutting himself in his office. She’d knock on the door to tell him she was going to bed, and then wake up again when he finally climbed into bed next to her. She’d wake up the following morning to find Paul gone, the bed next to her cold, with a note on the kitchen counter telling her that he’d gone to work. That was another thing – in a marriage that had lasted almost two decades, it had only really been in the last month that Paul had left something as courteous as a note telling her where he was.

For another thing, Paul was _angrier. _Linda knew that when Paul was having an affair, every little thing _Linda _was doing wrong – or even _differently _to his latest fling – was picked up on, used as fresh ammunition in the fight they’d find an excuse to have. Now, however, Linda wasn’t the problem. He was snappy, certainly, but the deep underlying anger wasn’t about her. She’d be ranted _to, _not _about. _The insults flung at her were about Hopper, or Starcourt, or even his secretary’s failings. She had to bite her tongue at that – Paul’s standards for his assistants and staff tended to become a lot higher when he wasn’t sleeping with them.

The problem was that Paul wasn’t _talking _to her. She wasn’t _suspicious_ – at least, not like she usually was – but there was definitely something going on with Paul and he was trying to keep it from her. Whether to protect her or to keep her out of it, she didn’t know, but either way, she was worried.

The man in question came home a little after ten. He lingered in the hall for at least a minute after taking off his coat and hanging it on the coat rack, eyes closed as he leant heavily on the bannister, gathering his thoughts before finally walking into the living room.

Linda leant back against the console table, wine glass in one hand, her other folded across her stomach. She looked at Paul expectantly, wordlessly demanding an explanation.

“Sorry,” he said by way of greeting. “I got held up at the office.”

Linda simply raised her eyebrows in response, watching as he collapsed into the sofa. He looked like the weight of the world was dragging down his shoulders – yet another sign that this _wasn’t _an affair. When he’d been sleeping with his latest secretary or paralegal, he generally had a spring in his step. This was completely different.

“Paul, what’s going on?” Linda asked – _demanded. _

Paul looked at her blankly, exhaustion evident in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

Linda gave a soft humourless laugh. “Well, you’re coming in late and leaving _ridiculously _early, you shut yourself in your office for hours on end, you’re barely sleeping, and you won’t talk to me about anything.”

“Linda, can we please not do this now-”

“Paul, I _know _something’s going on,” she snapped. “Please don’t insult my intelligence. I know it’s not an affair, it’s something that’s making you angry and upset, and it’s taking over your life.”

“Linda, _please, _I just got in-”

“Paul, I’m _worried _about you,” Linda steamrollered. “Believe it or not, I’m actually worried about you. I want to know what’s going on that’s _so important _that you’re practically killing yourself over it.”

It was a poor choice of words and she knew it as soon as they left her mouth. Her hand shook slightly, and Paul fixed her with an angry look. Still, never one to concede her own failings, she held his gaze.

The truth was that Paul was actively trying to keep her from finding out – _anything _at this point. At that moment, Paul had a lot of questions and no answers. The last time Linda had got it into her head that there was something more to Starcourt than met the eye, she’d become frantically obsessed with the idea that Steven was still alive, and Paul was _not _about to let her open the door to that particular rabbit hole again. If she got wind that he believed there was more to Starcourt than they’d been told – particularly to the extent that he believed – she could spiral again, and _now, _after they’d _finally _gotten to a point where she was really starting to move on, he was not prepared to put her through that again. He didn’t think he could take it again.

Particularly given that he hadn’t been able to take it the first time.

“Linda, I am trying to run a town,” Paul snapped. “What did you _expect?_ That we’d move back to Hawkins full-time, I’d be home by six every night, we’d have dinner together over a glass of wine and fall into bed together like newlyweds? It’s _hard, _Linda. There’s a _lot _of work that needs to be done; Kline left everything in a complete mess, and I’ve got my work cut out trying to fix it. So _please,_ can we skip the part where you play the long-suffering housewife?”

Linda’s jaw set in her mouth. She physically bit her tongue before taking a long swig of wine, draining the glass and setting it down on the console table.

“For _God’s sake, _Paul, I’m sorry for _caring,_” she snapped as she pushed herself away from the table. “You don’t need to be such an _asshole_ about it.”

She swept through the room past him as he stood up, catching her arm.

“Linda, _Jesus, _stop being a drama queen-”

“_Drama queen?_” she echoed incredulously. “For – for _giving a damn _about you for once in my life? I can’t believe you!”

She yanked her arm out of his grip with more force than necessary – not that Paul was holding it particularly hard – and turned to storm out towards the hall.

“Food’s in the kitchen,” she called back from the stairs, not breaking her stride. “You’re perfectly capable of putting it in the microwave yourself if you don’t want it cold.”

She slammed the door to the bedroom, collapsing into bed fully dressed. She eventually realised that she’d need to change if she wanted to sleep at all well that night, so she peeled it off and tossed it without a care into the laundry basket. She pulled on a thin satin nightgown before heading to the ensuite and brushing her teeth before finally getting into bed properly. Sleep didn’t come to her easily, and she lay there with her eyes open, glaring at the window long enough for Paul to finally come up to bed. He walked past the bed and into the bathroom and Linda rolled over, not willing to even _think _about continuing the argument – or, God forbid, hearing an _apology ­_– before morning.

However, she took a slight victory as she looked at the digital clock on her bedside table to see that it was twenty minutes before midnight when Paul finally climbed into bed next to her.

-:-

Defecting to the Soviet Union came with an upgraded uniform. Namely, a uniform identical to that of the man in black who had branded communist symbols into Steve and Billy’s backs.

They were both handed black cargo pants, black tops and black jackets, complete with hoods. They were also given a pair of black lace-up boots each. All in all, it was a significant upgrade from the cheap grey uniforms of the prisoners, leaving Steve – dare he say it – _warm?_

Ozerov left after they were given their new clothes, with an air of more satisfaction than Steve was comfortable seeing on the man – _monster. _The man in black left with him, leaving Steve and Billy with only the two soldiers for company.

They didn’t have to wait long – within ten minutes of Ozerov and the man in black departing, another soldier entered. Recognition shot across his face at the sight of Steve, but Steve couldn’t place the man.

“So you are still alive, American,” the soldier said with amusement in his voice. “I must say, I am impressed.

Billy shot a confused look at Steve at the English dialect. It was not merely a few words clearly taught in a short space of time only to be forgotten once they had served their purpose. This was a level of fluency hitherto only witnessed by Billy in Ozerov and Stepanov. However, the language jogged something in Steve’s memory.

He had completely forgotten about the soldier who had taken him from the hospital to Ozerov on the first day he’d woken up. The one who had given him a fragment of an idea about what to expect. The soldier who had told him to learn Russian, with English being a rarity.

“General Ozerov has instructed me to teach you Russian,” the soldier said.

“Sorry – _‘General’?_” Steve echoed.

The soldier gave him a calculating look.

“Yes,” he finally said. “After your… _victory_ with the monster ended up killing Comrade General Stepanov, Colonel Ozerov was the natural successor. I confess I was not alone in my surprise that he chose not to execute you both for that – particularly given your earlier treason – but I think his game has paid off, do you not think?”

The soldier gave Steve an unfriendly smile. Steve instantly felt himself drawing up to his fullest height.

“You continue to intrigue me, American,” the soldier said, looking at Steve. “By all logic, you should be dead, and yet here you stand. A _valuable _comrade to our people.”

Billy made an aborted move towards the soldier, who turned towards him with that same unfriendly smile.

“You should know what Comrade General Ozerov has instructed me to do if either of you fall out of line,” the soldier said coldly. “I do not think I need to tell you.”

Billy gave the soldier the filthiest glare he could muster, but didn’t attempt anything more drastic than that.

“Good,” the soldier said. “Well, since we are yet to have any introduction, I am Lieutenant Volkov. I suggest you sit down, and then we can get started.”

-:-

Paul scribbled a note a little before six in the morning with a reassurance that he’d try to make it home a little earlier that evening in lieu of an apology. He’d deliberately avoided committing to anything beyond making an effort, but he hoped it would be enough to reassure Linda that he was _trying._

He left the house as the moon was making its final appearance in the sky, climbing into the car and driving off. He wasn’t going straight to Town Hall, instead making a stop at the library. The building wouldn’t open to the public until nine, but being the Mayor did come with some perks – such as getting one of the caretakers to open it up almost three hours in advance for him.

The deserted streets meant that Paul could open the car up, pushing at the speed limit and cutting what could have been a thirty-minute drive time in half. He pulled into the library parking lot at ten past six, giving a small wave to the caretaker.

“Thanks,” Paul said with his best attempt at a warm smile. “I really appreciate you doing this for me.”

The caretaker shrugged with a mischievous grin. “Just consider this when you start handing out Christmas bonuses.”

Paul forced a small laugh at the terrible joke, choosing not to inform the man that individual salaries were something generally handled by the individual departments rather than him personally. The caretaker opened the door and let Paul into the deserted library.

Paul found his own way to the archives. The man he’d spoken to a few days earlier – Sam Owens – had piqued Paul’s interest. He was clearly the man in charge of the Starcourt Inquiry. Paul remembered him from the day he’d seen Steven’s body – _he tried to ignore the uncomfortable twist in his gut, shutting out the memory of the charred skeleton lying on that cold, metal table _– but there was something else about his name that seemed familiar.

For one thing, why had the man in charge of the Starcourt Inquiry taken time out of an incredibly busy period to show Paul and Linda their son’s body in the absence of the coroner? Why had the _coroner _not been able to stay, and yet the man from the Department of Energy who’d been _running the official inquiry _found time to sit with Paul and Linda and show them their son’s corpse?

He flipped through the archives, looking under ‘O’ for any articles that mentioned Doctor Sam Owens. There were endless articles from the last five months about Starcourt, mentioning the Department of Energy, with Sam Owens coming up as the apparent figurehead, but that seemed to be it.

Paul sighed, before running a hand through his hair. He closed the drawer with a slam, thinking hard. There was no mention of Doctor Owens in any article prior to Independence Day. But there was _something _about him that didn’t sit right with Paul.

He decided to widen his search. He pulled open another drawer, looking under ‘E’ for any mention of the Department of Energy. This proved a little more promising. The archives painted a rich picture of a branch of the United States government that didn’t seem too keen on sharing with the outside world exactly what it did. Paul started pulling out individual articles with headlines that looked promising, before realising he was pulling out almost every single article.

He glanced around, remembering that the only people likely to be present were the caretaker and any night staff, before just pulling out the entire section dedicated to the Department of Energy. He found a nearby table and flicked on a lamp, starting to read through the articles.

The sky had lightened outside to a point where it could seemingly pass for daytime when Paul, eyes hurting, glanced at his watch. His earlier impression about the Department of Energy had been right. He’d been reading articles solidly for over an hour, and he felt like he had less idea about what the Department of Energy _actually _did than he’d had when he’d started. Even the _name _was deliberately vague – _The Department of Energy _– Paul’s first impression from the name was overseeing the power grid, but they seemed to have an input in everything from the country’s transport all the way through to international relations. Everything to do with how the country got its energy, what it was used for, how it was _weaponised_, came under the Department of Energy’s control.

It made a certain amount of sense that the Department of Energy would be the ones to look into a gas explosion caused by a faulty line, but Paul’s gut told him that there was more to this. He passed a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes before flicking through the headlines once again. He spread the articles out, glancing at them slightly hopelessly, mindlessly flicking through them before one caught his eye.

He frowned at it. It took him a moment to connect what he was looking at, exhaustion getting the better of him, before he pulled it out and scanned briefly through it. He skimmed through it once, before going back and reading it again. He reread it three or four times, the significance of it sinking in a little further with every read as he stared at a photograph of a teenage girl.

_Holy shit._

-:-

Billy and Steve’s routine had been shaken up since they’d received new uniforms and formal Russian lessons.

For the most part, the lessons were going well. Steve was proving to be the better conversationalist, having had the advantage of picking up enough vocabulary from the instructions to actually start trying to catch words and conversations in the past. Predictably, though, Billy was much better at reading Russian, now that he’d grasped the alphabet. Between them, they could collaborate to have the communication skills of a four-year-old.

Which, given that they’d been guessing for two months and having formal lessons for a little over a week, was actually fairly impressive.

The day came, however, when their routine was disrupted.

The morning started as any other would. The cell door scraped open – the upgraded status evidently did not stretch to an improvement in accommodation – and their usual trays containing their single meal for the day were deposited in front of them. Billy watched as Steve moved more slowly to his tray than he usually did. The shadows under his eyes were more pronounced – he hadn’t been sleeping for any substantial length of time since Billy had come back.

They were then taken for a shower. The advantage of this was that they were no longer being hosed down by an impatient soldier, but rather had been granted access to an actual shower block. The water was still freezing, and the far reaches of Russia where this base was housed had evidently not encountered anything as luxurious as water pressure, but it was a definite improvement to have some semblance of control over when the water came on. Even if the soldiers were yet to grant them any privacy.

An impatient order to hurry up had them both scrambling to get dressed. Steve managed to pull his clothes on first, giving him enough of an advantage to lace up his boots in spite of his still-healing hands. He straightened up before Billy, looking over at the soldiers that were watching them impatiently.

“_Come on,_” one of the soldiers snapped at Steve in Russian. Their limited vocabulary was oddly easy to familiarise themselves with when they found themselves surrounded by it.

Steve shot a look that he hoped was neutral towards the soldier before following him towards the door. Billy made a move to follow, one of his laces tied in something closer to a clumsy knot rather than the double bow that most of the soldiers seemed to have managed, but he didn’t want to fall behind –

“_No,_” one of the soldiers snapped at him in Russian, putting a hand out in front of Billy’s chest.

Steve caught the order and turned his head around to give Billy a panicked look from a little beyond the door.

“Billy-”

A hand shoved Steve’s shoulder around with another barked order to keep moving. Billy saw his pale face still looking at him as he stumbled before disappearing around the corner.

“_Come,_” one of the remaining soldiers barked at Billy, gesturing down another corridor.

Billy was led in silence, the only sound being the heavily echoing footfalls on the concrete. He felt a growing sense of trepidation that came tinged with more than a hint of exhaustion. He was tired – _so tired _– of the constant fear, the uncertainty, the mind games… He’d had enough of those with the Mind Flayer to last him a lifetime.

He worked out what was happening when the door to the workshop came into view. The penny dropped with his heart, each step carrying a growing dread. His eyes fell shut as he took a deep breath, trying to repress the growl of anger that threatened to burst forth from his lips.

_Of course _they would separate them for this. Complete compliance came with a lack of any certainty over Steve’s fate. While, unlike Steve, he had a certain amount of reassurance that Steve was not in any real danger subject to Billy’s own obedience, that would change if Billy dared to try anything.

Privately, Billy was glad that Steve wasn’t here to see this. He was already astonished that Steve could see him as anything other than a monster already.

Ozerov was waiting by the door. Billy gave him the filthiest look he could manage. A flare of pure hatred erupted in him at the sight of Ozerov’s smile, the anticipation in his eyes more than Billy could stomach.

The door swung open and Ozerov led the way in, with Billy in tow, two soldiers bringing up the rear. The sight of Ozerov had Portnov bellowing an order that sent the prisoners lining up against the wall.

Billy’s chest tightened as hands on his shoulder stopped him from moving as Ozerov walked down the line. He paced up and down three times, taking in each of the prisoners before finally finding one to his liking.

Billy knew what was coming. He _knew _what he was about to be asked to do. He steeled himself as two soldiers manhandled a protesting man out of the line and threw him onto all fours in front of Billy –

Billy’s gut twisted as the man looked desperately up at him. The reason Ozerov had walked up and down the line so many times, looking for the perfect prisoner, immediately became apparent to him. He hadn’t been prepared for _this._

The man kneeling at his feet had long brown hair that had grown out all over the place into a mop that fell over his eyes. The beginnings of a beard was smattered over his face. The brown eyes that looked up at him, full of fear, looked wider thanks to the pinched cheeks and slightly starved look that everyone seemed to have in the facility. He looked young – possibly Billy’s age, possibly even a year younger.

Billy could have been looking down at Steve.

He looked up at Ozerov, who offered him the handle of a gun.

“I trust Butterscotch told you what to do,” Ozerov said coldly in English.

Billy took the handle of the gun. A burning urge to point it at Ozerov, to pull the trigger and watch him fall to the ground, flashed through his mind, but just like Steve had done a matter of days ago, he thought of the only person who mattered.

He steeled himself as he aimed it squarely between the man’s eyes. He forced himself to focus on the differences between this man and Steve – the slightly more prominent chin, the different angle to the nose…

The man didn’t bother trying to beg for mercy. He simply looked up at Billy with resigned sadness in his eyes. His mind was playing tricks on him – it reminded Billy so _very, very much _of the look that seemed permanently lodged in Steve’s eyes now. Resigned to his fate.

Billy had to think of Steve. He had to do this for Steve.

_It wasn’t like he wasn’t already a killer, anyway._

He steeled himself and pulled the trigger.

-:-

Hopper decided to try a power play of his own.

He’d thought about calling ahead to ensure that he’d be seen, but decided against giving Paul Harrington any kind of warning about his arrival. He was here on official police business – a local neighbour had given Hopper the perfect opening to try and drag himself onto the same page as Harrington, to get everything out into the open.

So Hopper made the call to unsettle Harrington. It was, after all, police business. This was entirely professional. There were no personal, petty reasons behind his tactics whatsoever.

Hopper had never felt quite so uneasy around Kline as he did around Harrington. Kline had many faults – a corrupt member of the elite, with little to no regard for his own voters beyond what they thought come election day, he had been easy to read, easy to predict, easy to _manage._ Harrington had just as many faults as Kline, but at his core, there was a burning strand of integrity. He was volatile, unpredictable, a determined energy to find as many wrongs as he could and fix them, an unshakeable belief that he was doing the right thing.

There was a little part of Hopper that was impressed by Paul Harrington. Hopper knew first-hand the devastation that losing Sarah had wreaked upon his life. He’d slipped into a black hole that had taken interdimensional monsters, superpowered girls and frantic mothers to extricate himself from. Harrington, however, had launched a determined conquest against anything that had dared to take his only child away from him, turning it outwards to find anyone – _everyone _– responsible and make them pay dearly.

Hopper’s gut twisted at the realisation. Harrington certainly held Hopper responsible – he’d made that abundantly clear in every interaction the two of them had – but he didn’t know just quite_ how _responsible Hopper truly was. He didn’t know that Hopper’s nightly nightmares now had a rising star, in amongst the flowers of teeth and oozing slime, of a boy in a sailor’s outfit with a sad, resigned look on his face as it slowly burnt away to a blackened, charred skull.

What had happened to Steve Harrington was entirely Hopper’s fault. Which meant that the very real threat that Paul Harrington now posed to El and everyone else was also on Hopper. Sam Owens had been right about the fact that this needed to go away. And given that this entire situation was entirely his fault, it made sense that Hopper was the one to do it.

Which brought him to nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning.

He waltzed past the secretary, ignoring her protests with a flash of a badge.

“Here on official police business,” he said over her squawks about how _“Mayor Harrington is busy right now…”_

He pushed open the door to find Harrington sat at his desk on the phone. He glanced up to see Hopper walking into his office, his gaze hardening a fraction before continuing his conversation, a single finger held up to Hopper.

“…Yes, I appreciate that,” he was saying. “I understand completely… That said, we have found a significant increase in our budget, and we are expanding the department-”

Hopper smiled at him as he put a hand down on the phone’s cradle, ending the call. Harrington’s eyes widened at his audacity, a furious glare taking over as Hopper sat down in the chair in front of Harrington’s desk.

“Mayor Har-”

Harrington didn’t say a word, instead reaching across the desk to start to dial again, his teeth gritted as he completely ignored Hopper’s presence beyond pulling the phone closer to himself and out of Hopper’s reach as it rang.

“Hello? I’m sorry, we must have been cut off,” Harrington said smoothly into the handset, turning his chair slightly to make it clear that Hopper was being fully ignored. “Yes, as I was saying, we’ve found it in our budget to drastically expand the department… Yes, at least… You’ll consider it? Fantastic… Well, I look forward to discussing this further… I can come to Indianapolis – next week, perhaps? Are you free on Thursday? … Wonderful, I’ll have my secretary book something… I’ll see you then. Thank you.”

Harrington finally hung up the phone with a smile on his face that fell like a stone as soon as he looked at Hopper.

“How _dare _you come into my office unannounced and interrupt me?” Harrington said coldly. He didn’t raise his voice, but his displeasure was tangible.

“I’m sorry, did I disturb some critical social plans?” Hopper said sarcastically. “You know, the point of being Mayor is that you stay and run the place, not pop down to Indianapolis for a mid-week break.”

Harrington raised a single eyebrow. “As it _happens_, your department is being expanded,” he said coldly. “That was the Commissioner. I’m meeting him for lunch next week to discuss an increase in recruits.”

Hopper didn’t bother trying to look contrite at this news.

“I _told_ you, we don’t _need _an expanded department,” Hopper said. “Three-hundred-and-sixty-four days a year we’re already overstaffed. Expanding the department is just a good way to send money down the drain-”

“And what about the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth day?” Harrington pointed out. “When something like _Starcourt _happens? Or when a child goes missing? What happens then? I know that our residents would sleep much better knowing that there is an adequate force available in this town for the increasingly frequent occurrence of something very serious going wrong.”

Hopper opened his mouth with a half-formed retort before Harrington cut across him.

“Now look, you didn’t come storming in here to debate department changes with me, so what do you want, Hopper?”

Hopper glared at Harrington, biting his tongue. “I got a call last night,” he said. “Apparently someone in East Hawkins saw your car parked outside Hess Farm.”

Harrington raised a single eyebrow.

“Would you like to tell me what it was _doing _there?” Hopper asked.

Harrington returned Hopper’s glare in kind. “I don’t believe that my car’s location is any of your business.”

“It _is _my business when you trespass on government land.”

Harrington gave a soft laugh at that. “_Trespassing?_” Harrington said. “Is there a _sign _there to make it clear that the property is government-owned?”

Hopper couldn’t help but laugh at Harrington’s question. Harrington still held that thin, cold smile as Hopper rubbed his eyes.

“You know, you are _such _a lawyer, through and through,” he said softly. “Everything’s got to be absolutely by the book with you.”

“Strangely enough, that’s not actually a _bad _thing,” Harrington said coldly. “The law exists for a reason. It protects people. It provides a clear set of right and wrong, objective to any biases. A set of rules to follow if and when things go wrong. A guideline for justice for those that _make _it go wrong.”

Hopper smiled at Harrington. “Did they teach you that at law school?”

Harrington returned the humourless smile. “Something like that.”

Hopper’s eyebrows bounced up slightly as he looked away from Harrington. “What were you doing at Hess Farm?” Hopper asked again.

“Would it _matter?_”

Hopper sighed, sensing he wasn’t going to get anywhere by simply asking questions. Harrington was being _far _too guarded, carefully keeping his answers devoid of any admission. So Hopper decided on a slightly more direct approach.

“Can I give you some advice?” Hopper said, running a hand over his face, looking around the office. “I can probably guess what you were doing, even if you won’t tell me, and I can tell you now, it’s not healthy.”

Harrington gave him a coldly appraising look. “_What _isn’t healthy?”

“All this,” Hopper gestured around the room. “You’re burying yourself in this to avoid having to face the reality of what happened to Steve. And I can tell you now, from someone who’s been there, it’s not healthy. You’re looking for anyone to blame, but when the people who were responsible weren’t enough to make that guilt go away, you keep looking for things that aren’t there.”

“What the hell do you mean by _‘guilt’?_” Harrington snapped.

Hopper softened his gaze, giving Harrington a long look. “I get it,” he said softly. “When I lost – when I lost Sarah, I would have done _anything _to find someone to blame for the time I didn’t get to spend with her. You’re doing the same. The person who’s responsible for what happened to your kid is in custody, but there’s no – there’s no _pattern _there to be found. He did a lot of awful shit, I get it, but there’s no _link_ – there’s no _conspiracy_… The only connection there is money. That’s why Kline did everything. He rinsed this town for every penny it had, but that’s _it._ To throw yourself in a quest for revenge, looking for things that aren’t there… you’re going to end up drowning in it.”

Harrington leant forwards in his chair, leaning across his desk to where Hopper sat.

“And what would _you _know about healthy coping mechanisms?” he spat venomously. “Because if I recall correctly, you dealt with the death of your daughter by drowning yourself in booze.”

Hopper bristled at the barb, trying to ignore the way his gut clenched. “Take it from someone who’s been there,” he said softly. “I know an addiction when I see one.”

This seemed to get to Harrington in a way that nothing else had.

“I’m trying to _clean up _this town,” he snapped. “I’m trying to fix the mess that you and Kline left it to get _into_. I seem to be the _only _person who seems to understand that things like Starcourt_ shouldn’t be happening _here. Things like what happened to Barbara Holland and William Byers _shouldn’t be happening _in this town. I’m not about to apologise if _making this town safe again _steps on your toes.”

Hopper gave Harrington a strange smile. “You’re not trying to fix this town,” he said softly, shaking his head. “You’re trying to fix your relationship with your son. You just don’t want to admit that, because that means admitting that you left it too late.”

Harrington held his gaze for the briefest and longest of seconds.

“_Get out!_” he snapped, jolting to his feet.

Hopper raised his eyebrows before slowly getting to his feet. Paul felt a surge of fire burning through his body, completely unfamiliar. He _never _lost control like that.

If there had been any doubt in his mind that Hopper was involved in what was going on in Hawkins, it was long gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so first off - I have recently noticed that this story now has over 750 kudos. That has completely blown my mind. I'm constantly overwhelmed by the positive response this story has had. I read every single comment and they all make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I'm so glad everyone has enjoyed going on this journey with me, because I've absolutely loved writing it and we're not even at what I personally feel is the best part. (More on that later...) 
> 
> A side note about this chapter and the next chapter - I did have to fight extremely hard not to call it "a montage is the fastest way to get Steve and Billy somewhat competent in Russia." It was all going to be one chapter, but then I started actually fleshing out scenes and things kind of... took off...? Like, seriously, that last scene between Hopper and Paul was only meant to be like 500 words, but it kind of proved to be a really good point to put that conversation in. Like I've been toying with the idea of exploring that foil for a little while and delving a bit below the surface, writing it in my head for shits and giggles, but then it was actually a pretty good place to put it. (Also, I really love to hate Paul, he's so much fun to write!) So yeah, montage will continue next chapter... I might even touch upon the Party for the first time in objectively far too long (even though they may not have very much to do...)


	33. Part 3 Chapter 12: Treason Is Such An Ugly Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: DUBIOUS CONSENT. There is an encounter between two characters with extremely dubious consent. While not explicit and they ultimately establish some boundaries (in a manner of speaking), it is there, and it hit remarkably close to home for me while writing it.

Steve was, quite frankly, surprised it took as long as it did for the Russians to change their routine again.

Volkov seemed to have become a permanent fixture in their lives. It was at least another week after what Billy jokingly nicknamed his _‘exam’_ before anything changed. At least a week of solidly speaking in stilted Russian while Volkov unkindly corrected their mistakes. At least a week of stumbling over words, making mistakes that only Volkov picked up on while Steve and Billy tried to familiarise themselves with the language.

Steve was worried about Billy. His _‘exam’_ – and _God, _did Steve hate that joke – had seemingly had no discernible effect on Billy. He didn’t talk about it, he didn’t cry and scream and break down about what had happened like Steve had done. Steve kept trying to ask about it, trying to get Billy to open up about _any _of it, but Billy kept brushing it off. All he said was that he _‘passed with flying colours.’_ And if that wasn’t an unhealthy coping mechanism, Steve wasn’t sure what _was._ He wanted Billy to have a _reaction. _Something substantial. Something that would tell him that Billy was _dealing with it._

Because Steve had become privy to Billy’s nightmares.

He didn’t know quite when he’d stopped sleeping, but most nights, he lay awake, staring up at the bulb in their cell that never turned off. Billy did sleep, though. He slept and he _dreamed. _Whatever he was dreaming was not to his taste, because since his _‘exam’_, he would start talking in his sleep. The smallest whispers turned into desperate, wild screams, at which point Steve would wake him up. Steve wondered if he was being selfish, disturbing Billy’s rest out of his own incapability of hearing his nightmares.

The first time Steve had tried to wake Billy, he’d received a punch to the face for his troubles. Wild, wide eyes saw Steve above him, so _close_, but there was no recognition in Billy’s eyes. Steve was evidently a physical manifestation of the monster from his nightmares – _and who could say what monster it was, with so many to choose from? _– and lashed out. Steve had tried to intercept his hands that flew up to his face, but a lack of practice on his part and a lack of predictability on Billy’s part meant that he had failed miserably, the blow glancing off the side of his cheek and sending him sprawling away. Billy had properly woken up at the noise Steve had made, stilling himself as he looked over at Steve, slowly pushing himself up off the concrete. Steve had brushed off his apologies with a few _‘I’m fine’_s and even more _‘not your fault’_s.

Steve cared far more about the fact that Billy was struggling – and more importantly, _not dealing with it._

Steve would have hazarded a guess that it was mid-morning when Volkov announced that they were going to do something different.

Despite having never been in one in his life, Steve immediately recognised the shooting gallery for what it was. It made complete sense after Steve’s disastrous attempt at shooting someone at point-blank range that Ozerov would want to try and train him, particularly given that Steve and Billy seemed to be essential lynchpins in whatever Ozerov had planned in Hawkins. Getting some basic weapons training in how to use a gun was the logical next step.

It also proved to be a test for their Russian, as Volkov decided to largely conduct their lesson in Russian, with the occasional aside in English when Billy and Steve didn’t immediately jump to follow his orders.

“_Pick up the gun,_” Volkov instructed in Russian. “_Check the safety._”

Steve glanced down at the side of the weapon. It was a small handgun – evidently the Russians did not have confidence in them handling anything larger.

“_Check the clip,_” Volkov said.

“The what?” Steve asked, slipping into English before catching himself and asking in Russian. “_What?_”

“The clip with the bullets,” Billy explained in English.

“_Russian, Americans,_” Volkov reprimanded.

Billy rolled his eyes with his back to Volkov.

“_There’s a _– I don’t know how to explain this in Russian,” Billy snapped, shooting Volkov a filthy look.

Volkov stared Billy down before walking over to Steve. He found a small catch on the handgun in Steve’s hand, sending the clip sliding out of the gun. Steve fumbled, trying to catch it, barely succeeding. Volkov gave him a withering look.

“_Check the bullets in the clip,_” Volkov instructed. “_Check that the clip is full._”

He was met with blank looks from both Steve and Billy, so switched to English with a huff.

“Check that the clip is full,” Volkov snapped. “When you are done, return the clip to the gun. Do you need me to do that for you _as well, _American?”

Steve glared at Volkov’s snide comment, trying to maintain eye contact as he pushed the clip back into the gun. The effect was slightly undermined by Steve missing the gun altogether, causing him to glance down to make sure he got it right on his second attempt. The unkind smirk from Volkov was countered by the affectionate laugh it drew from Billy.

“_Now, let me see your stance,_” Volkov ordered.

“Plant your feet, Harrington,” Billy said softly, the grin audible in his voice.

Steve was assaulted by very vivid memories of standing in a dark room, flakes like ash floating around him as he aimed a gun much larger than the one in his hand at a truly awful painting. As Volkov set about adjusting his stance with short instructions like _‘shoulders back’_, his hands correcting his posture, Steve glanced over at Billy, who was watching him with a strange smile on his face. He was very clearly remembering the same thing Steve was remembering, when he’d done something very similar to Steve in a nightmarish version of Steve’s living room.

Volkov walked away from Steve, before checking on Billy. With far fewer corrections to make, he finally stood back behind them, watching as they both aimed their guns at the paper targets on the opposite side of the gallery.

“_Safety off,_” Volkov barked in Russian – a command he’d taught them a few days earlier.

There was a soft click as Steve found the safety on the side of the gun and flicked it off.

“_Fire!_”

-:-

Robin wasn’t entirely sure how driving Dustin to school a few times a week had evolved into her becoming a personal chauffeur for several of Dustin’s friends to a Junior High Christmas dance, but she suddenly found herself feeling a lot more sympathetic towards Steve’s old predicament as Mike Wheeler climbed awkwardly into the back of the car next to Lucas.

“Alright, morons, you’re late, so buckle up,” she snapped.

“We’re not _late,_ you were just _early,_” Mike snapped back. “I _told _you my mom would want to take, like, a _thousand _pictures of me.”

“And I told _you _I didn’t give a shit,” Robin pointed out. “I have places to be on a Saturday night beyond taking you to a stupid dance, so if you _knew _your mom was going to be spending ten minutes taking photos, you should have been ready ten minutes earlier.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Are we picking up Will?”

“No, I think his mom’s taking him. Now buckle up, because if I get a ticket because one of you morons hasn’t got your seatbelt on, _you’re _paying for it. And it’s going to be your weekly allowance for the next eight years.”

“Joke’s on you, I don’t _get _a weekly allowance anymore,” Mike said sarcastically.

“Mike, just put your fucking seatbelt on,” Lucas snapped.

Robin rolled her eyes as she pulled the car onto the road. “I really don’t know _how_ Steve put up with you all,” she sighed.

Lucas and Mike almost immediately fell silent – an unofficial rule that seemed to have cropped up in the Party was never to mention the _‘S’ _word around Dustin unless he brought it up. The atmosphere in the back of the car changed –

“We’re too loveable,” Dustin said without missing a beat. “Of course he put up with us.”

Robin gave a small laugh with another eyeroll. “Whatever you say, my strange little child friend.”

Mike and Lucas shared an encouraged look. It was the first time they’d heard Dustin talk about Steve _casually_, a throwaway remark that didn’t send his face falling. Clearly, the therapist Hopper had sorted for him was doing _something._

The drive to the dance was short, with Robin seemingly adopting the policy that speed limits were entirely optional when there was no traffic on the road. She pulled into the car park, sending the kids on their way with the instructions that they were to meet her outside at eleven o’clock on the dot, and if they were even a minute late, she would leave them to call their parents for rides.

The gym was decked out in enough tinsel to make Times Square look understated. A Christmas tree was set up in the far corner, with music that would have made Jonathan’s ears bleed playing over the sound system. The three of them looked around the room, taking in the overcrowded dancefloor and the tables and chairs set up by the Christmas tree.

“Hey guys.”

The three of them turned to see Will walking up to them. El was hovering some way behind, looking nervously over at Mike. Mike looked back at her, feeling those familiar butterflies in his stomach.

“So you ditched the bird nest this year,” Will joked, looking over at Dustin.

Dustin shrugged, a cocky smile settling on his face. “Don’t need it,” he grinned. “Given that I’m the only one of us who’s, you know, in a functional relationship, I don’t _need_ to impress the ladies.”

“Oh yeah, _Suzie,_” Lucas said, grinning mischievously. “How is the… _Shakespearean _love story going?”

“It’s going great, actually,” Dustin said. “She’s talking about coming to visit over Spring Break.”

Will frowned. “Do her parents… _know _about you yet?”

“No, but-”

Lucas burst out laughing. “So she’s going to come to a whole other state without her parents knowing?”

“She’s working up to _tell _them,” Dustin explained.

“Ahh, the tragic twist in the narrative,” Lucas mocked, overacting as he put on a ridiculously over-the-top face of despair and a dreadful attempt at an English accent. “She finally opens up to her parents about her secret love, and they tell her that it can never be-”

“Shall we go and sit down?” Dustin said, leading the way.

“-So she runs away into the night-” Lucas continued, following after Dustin and Will, the former of whom was trying desperately to ignore him.

“Whatever,” Dustin snapped.

“-To be reunited with her far-off lover-”

“Shut up, Lucas.”

“-Never to return home…”

Will couldn’t help a snort of laughter as Dustin waved a middle finger over his shoulder at Lucas. If any of them noticed Mike not following them, they didn’t show it.

El walked up to Mike nervously. Things were still incredibly awkward between them. Sheer circumstance had kept El in the loop, with Hopper and Joyce spending enough time together that El had become remarkably close to Will. While Mike still occasionally talked to her at school, asking how her day was, she felt very much on the periphery of his life in a way that she hadn’t ever felt in the time that she’d known him. Even when Hopper had kept her locked in the cabin, she still watched him, listened to him call her every night. She’d refrained from using her powers to spy on him – she wanted him to come back to her on his own terms, she didn’t want to hear what he really thought of her, whispered in the dark when nobody was watching, in case her worst fears were true – that Mike did truly hate her.

Still, the fact that he was talking to her was encouraging.

“Hey,” Mike said. “A step up from the Snow Ball, huh?”

He gestured around the room, the tinsel hanging from the ceiling like an unnecessarily sparkly marquee. El didn’t really have very much perspective on the matter – the Snow Ball had been the most sparkly thing she’d ever seen, a magical night taken straight from the stories that Hopper tried to read to her.

“It’s nice,” El commented. “Pretty.”

Mike gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Really pretty.”

El smiled at him, a nervous but expectant look on her face.

“You look – you look pretty too,” he stammered.

El’s smile became wider. “Thanks.”

And just like that, the conversation stalled. Mike ended up looking at his shoes, rubbing the back of his neck as El suddenly felt nervous.

“Dance?” El suggested.

Mike glanced over his shoulder. He caught sight of Dustin and Lucas and Will, saw Lucas still making fun of Dustin, Will’s face lighting up with laughter as he joined in.

“I – I-” Mike turned back towards El strangely. “I can’t – I’m sorry – I can’t – I – I can’t ditch…”

He trailed off, not looking at El, an apologetic look settling on his face. He couldn’t put his finger on _why _he was turning down El, why everything that had felt so _right _with her for so long now felt so wrong, but something had changed between them – something that distance had not mended. He swallowed.

“I can’t, El,” he finally said. “I’m sorry.”

“Mike…” she said, the disappointment evident in her voice.

“I’m sorry, El,” he finally said. He tried not to think about the look on her face as he walked away, crossing the dance floor to join the others.

“Hey Mike – _whoah,_ hang on,” Will suddenly caught sight of the look on Mike’s face. “Mike, are you okay?”

Mike nodded slightly. “Yeah, just…” he trailed off, fighting the urge to look back over at El. “Just realised something.”

He sat down as Lucas looked at him with far, _far _too much understanding. Mike knew Lucas had encountered a similar realisation that day in the woods months ago, but Mike had somehow clung onto the notion that he was just _upset _with El, that he’d get over it and that things could go back to how they were. But even just hearing her asking him to dance, stood there looking beautiful with her hair done up and a little bit of makeup, he’d realised that there _was _no anger there anymore. He could have said yes to the dance – he’d felt like he _should _have said yes to the dance – but there was something about the setting that had reminded him of the Snow Ball, how _excited _he’d been to see her, how blown away he’d been by her just twelve months ago, that was so very _different_ to things now. If he’d danced with her, it would have been because he’d been _expected _to, not because he _wanted _to. And that was the crux of it all.

It had brought into clarity that he didn’t actively _want _to be with her anymore.

“I’m sorry, man,” Lucas said. “It sucks.”

Mike sighed. “Yeah.”

“On the bright side, though,” he said, “we’re three bachelors at a dance. We can show Dustin what he’s missing with Suzie being in Utah.”

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah, I can’t _wait _to watch you crash and burn out there, Lucas,” he joked.

“I’ll probably sit this one out,” Will shrugged. “I don’t really feel like spending the night getting rejected.”

“Dude,” Lucas protested. “Didn’t you get picked up by that girl last year without even trying? You’re a total chick magnet.”

Will gave Lucas an unimpressed look before glancing over at Mike, who was still staring at the table miserably. Lucas got the hint, easing off slightly.

“Why don’t I go and get us some drinks?” Lucas suggested. “What does everyone want?”

He was pretty sure that all they had was coke or punch, and was secretly relieved when they all shrugged. He sidled over to the refreshments table, grabbing four cans of coke before turning –

And finding himself face to face with Stacey Albright.

“Hey Lucas,” she smiled at him.

Caught off-guard, he tried for a winning smile, but was convinced he just looked terrified. “Uh – hey, Stacey.”

“Do you want to dance?”

“Uh…” Lucas glanced down at his hands full of coke cans. “I was going to go and give these to-”

She plucked them out of his hands and set them back down on the table before grabbing his arm and practically dragging him out onto the dance floor.

“Come on,” she laughed.

Lucas was completely bewildered by the turn of events, finding himself in the middle of the dance floor next to one of the most popular girls in his class. He awkwardly moved in time to the music as Stacey put her arms around his shoulders.

He caught a glimpse of the others over Stacey’s shoulder, still sat at their table, looking at him with a mixture of amusement and confusion. Dustin was grinning at him, but gave him a confused shrug while mouthing _‘how?’_ across the room. Lucas shook his head with what he hoped were panicked eyes as Stacey turned him away from them.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The song gave way to a more upbeat number, with a couple of Stacey’s friends joining them with their respective partners for the night. Dustin had evidently dragged Will up to find him someone to dance with, taking on the role of wingman, because Lucas caught sight of Will dancing with a brunette he didn’t know while Dustin watched with a satisfied look on his face before going back to the table to keep Mike company.

Eventually, Stacey must have gotten bored, because after a few songs, she pulled him away back towards the refreshments table.

“It’s dead in here,” she declared. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

Lucas didn’t quite know what was happening as he found himself being dragged towards the girls’ bathroom.

“Uh – Stacey-”

“It’s fine,” she said easily, cutting through his protests. “As long as you’re with me.”

She gave him a triumphant smile as she pushed the door open and practically dragged him in.

“Stacey, what-”

And suddenly, her lips were on his. Taken completely by surprise, he found himself pushed up against the wall, her hands on his waist. Her tongue slowly pressed into his mouth. He numbly sat there, not entirely sure what to do with his hands, or indeed any part of his body.

“Relax,” Stacey said, breaking the kiss for long enough to smile at him reassuringly. “It’s fine. You’re getting more action than most people tonight, believe me.”

“I…”

His protests trailed off as she kissed him again, opening her mouth and pressing her lips against his. He wasn’t entirely sure quite what to do, finally settling for putting his hands on her shoulders gently. He didn’t quite know how to tell her that he wasn’t comfortable with this – it wasn’t that she was _bad _at kissing, it just didn’t feel _right._

It definitely didn’t feel right when her hands wandered to the front of his pants and started fiddling with his belt.

“Wait, what are you doing?” he asked, breaking the kiss and trying to ease her back gently.

She looked at him with a slightly confused smile on her face. “I thought you were meant to be smart – you know, being a nerd and all that.”

She finally succeeded in unlooping his belt from the buckle, leaving it to hang undone from his hips.

“Wait – wait – wait – hold on – stop!”

Stacey’s confusion increased as her hands rested on the waistband of his pants.

“Do you _want _some action tonight or not?”

He didn’t answer, looking at her. Her hands slipped off his hips and she took a step back, an incredulous smile on her face.

“Oh my God,” she said, sounding stunned. “You’re still hung up on her, aren’t you? It’s been – what, a full _semester_ – and you’re _still _hung up on that Mayfield dyke?”

“Stacey, that's not-”

She shook her head disbelievingly. “I can’t believe you, Sinclair. You’re-”

Lucas never found out what he was, because at that moment, the door to the bathroom swung open to reveal the _last _person Lucas wanted to catch him in this state.

Max stopped in her tracks, taking in the sight of Lucas with his belt undone, Stacey standing in front of him with that incredulous smile on her face that very suddenly morphed into a triumphant grin.

“Oh,” Max said, staring at them.

Stacey was the first to recover, giving Lucas a soft pat on his cheek.

“Hope you enjoyed that, Lucas,” she said, smirking as she breezed past Max and out the door.

Max gave Lucas a look of pure loathing before turning on her heel and walking out. Lucas finally recovered enough to start refastening his belt before chasing after her.

“Max, it’s not what it looks like,” he said, stumbling out into the corridor outside the gym. Slightly hampered by his continuing quest to refasten his belt, he tried to catch up with her.

“Lucas, I _really _don’t care,” Max snapped.

“Max, _please, _can we at least _talk _about this?”

She shook her head, still not stopping to turn around to look at him. “What’s there to _talk _about? We’re not a couple. If you want Albright to feel you up in the bathroom, that’s your problem.”

“Max, that’s-” he finally succeeded in doing up his belt and chased after her, catching her arm. “That’s not what happened.”

She finally looked at him, looking down at her arm furiously.

“Get off me,” she said coldly.

Lucas let her go and she stormed back into the gym, leaving him in the middle of the corridor. She caught sight of Stacey, back on the dancefloor, giggling with her friends. They all looked over at her, completely unashamed, as she finally huffed and stormed out of the school towards the payphone outside.

She’d been at the dance for less than an hour, but she didn’t care. Everyone in school hated her. That was fine. That was absolutely fucking _fine. _She didn’t care. She didn’t _need _them. If Lucas had moved on, then so could she.

Her mom was there in less than twenty minutes after her call. She waited outside by the payphone, trying _very _hard not to break something. She climbed into the car wordlessly, ignoring the look that her mom was giving her. Max could feel her eyes on her, waiting for her to say something, but some level of intuition previously not gifted to her mother had evidently kicked in, and Max was allowed to suffer the drive in relative silence.

“Do you want to get burgers or something?” was all her mom asked.

Max simply shook her head, unable to stop the tear slipping down her cheek. She wiped it away angrily – _Lucas didn’t deserve her fucking tears, for God’s sake!_

The car pulled into their driveway and Max managed a small thanks to her mom before storming into her room. She curled up on her bed, anger coursing through her as she punched her pillow into a better shape with more force than strictly necessary.

It wasn’t enough. She pushed herself back up and started pummelling the pillow repeatedly. Those shameful tears kept falling down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away again, but they kept coming. Giving up her fight with her own emotions, she flung her pillow away from her, watching as it crashed into her dresser.

A few things fell off the top of the dresser as the pillow crashed into it. A couple of cassettes were sent falling down onto the floor, along with some of her small collection of makeup that she’d broken out for the day, and –

A fresh wave of anger flooded her as she finally saw the radio given to her over a year ago by Lucas. It had been sat on top of the dresser for the duration of the semester, completely untouched, the batteries long-dead. Furiously, she picked it up, glaring at it, unable to account for why it was upsetting her so much.

Without thinking, she threw it on the ground. It bounced off the wooden floorboards, the back of the battery compartment coming off. She picked it up again, smashing it into the end of her bed. The impact rippled up her arm, feeling more satisfying than simply throwing it against the floor. So she did it again.

Something rattled inside the radio that time. She smashed it against the metal bed frame again. The plastic casing started to come loose. She did it again, and again, and again, until the front panel finally came loose. She tore it away, not caring that this was an expensive radio, because she wouldn’t need it anymore. She was _done _with their party. She smashed the radio down on the metal bedframe, the opening in the casing allowing her to start breaking up the inner components. She slammed it down again, and again, and _again,_ until she pulled it away, what she could only assume was a speaker dangling from it, only held in place by a wire. It came free with a tug, and Max, finally satisfied, threw the broken radio across the room, watching as it skidded across the floor to come to rest in the corner of the room under her closet.

Finally appeased, she fell back against the bed, at last letting the tears fall.

-:-

Steve and Billy’s weapons training evolved into all kinds of combat training over the next few weeks.

They learnt some basic hand-to-hand combat in the gym, with orders being barked at them in Russian. They were getting more fluent in understanding what Volkov was shouting at them, resulting in far less exasperated eyerolls as he was forced to transition into English less and less.

Billy was proving remarkably proficient both on the shooting range and when he started sparring with Steve. The advantage on the shooting range was to be expected – he had the distinct advantage of the hunting trips he’d gone on with his father – but it was when it came to hand-to-hand combat that the marked difference between Steve and Billy was evident. Billy would repeatedly win the fights between them, often earning him praise from Volkov while Steve did his best to ignore the scathing looks he was getting.

It was only after a particularly brutal session in the gym that Billy finally understood.

“You’re holding back,” Billy said that evening as they got back into their cell, Steve rubbing his arm and walking stiffly. Billy knew Steve was going to have a really quite impressive bruise on his back in the morning.

“Huh?” Steve looked over at him, that oh-so-hateful exhaustion in his eyes.

“You’re holding back in the gym,” Billy explained. “You should have won that last fight. I gave you an opening. I gave you a _lot _of openings. Even in the state you’re in, you should have won that fight.”

“What do you mean,_ ‘the state I’m in’?_”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “You’re not sleeping,” he said bluntly. “I _know _you’re not sleeping. Every time I wake up in the middle of the night, you’re awake too. And _God _knows we need to talk about that, but that’s not why you’re losing those fights. You’re holding back, both on the shooting range and in the gym. Why?”

“Billy, I don’t need you to-”

“Do you want to know _my _theory?” Billy asked without waiting for an answer. “I think you’re holding back because you don’t want to do this.”

“…Do _what, _Billy?”

Billy rolled his eyes with a long-suffering sigh. Steve was _not _making this easy for him.

“_This,_” he said, gesturing around the cell and at the uniforms they were wearing. “Being a Soviet soldier. Going back home and helping the Russians take over America or whatever.”

Steve snorted.

“No,” he laughed bitterly. “Funnily enough, I _don’t _want to become a traitor and turn on my country and go after my friends. But it’s not like we have a _choice._ It’s either that or _we both die. _I’m not prepared to watch them kill you.”

Billy sighed. “Steve…”

“Billy, I don’t want to be turned into… into this _killing machine _that the Russians – that the Mind Flayer – can just point at my friends back home. I don’t want to become that.”

Billy crossed the cell and pulled Steve into his arms.

“I know,” he breathed. “It’s one of the many things I like about you. Your _too damn perfect_ moral compass that’s going to get you killed one of these days.”

Steve hummed as Billy pulled away from him, leaving his hands on Steve’s arms.

“I knew from the word go that you didn’t want to do this,” Billy said. “I hate that look you always get when you get a hit in when we fight in the gym. And it’s becoming a pretty permanent feature on you. Which is _why_ I’ve got a suggestion for you.”

Steve frowned. “If you’re about to suggest that we just _stop _working for them, that’s not going to work. They’ll kill us.”

Billy rolled his eyes again. “That’s not what I was going to suggest,” he said. “It’s a little different. It’s risky as hell, so I need you to be on board with it.”

Steve gave him a confused look.

“Do you remember what you said to me?” Billy asked. “Ages ago? Something about shit happening and we deal with it.”

Steve gave a small nod, his confusion not going anywhere.

“Do you remember what _I _said?” Billy asked.

“Billy…” Steve said warily.

“Right now, we’re letting shit happen and we’re dealing with it,” Billy explained. “What if _instead…_ we didn’t let shit happen?”

“But Billy, we _tried _that once before,” Steve snapped, pulling away from Billy and running a hand through his short hair. “And as I remember – and _God _knows I remember – that’s what got us _into _this mess in the first place. You were – you were nearly _killed!_ I had to watch as they strung you up and beat you half to death, and I’m-”

He choked on the words that threatened to burst out of his mouth.

“I’m not watching that again,” Steve finally managed. “I’m not prepared to risk you again.”

“Yes, I know, but _Steve,_” Billy grabbed his arms again. “Things are _different _now. They _trust _us. They’re – they’re _training _us. We go along with their training, we get _good enough, _we can take them on.”

Steve gave a derisive snort.

“Steve, _think about it,_” Billy said. “We escaped from this cell with _nothing. _We took out three guards and stole their weapons. You got close enough to a Russian _General. _We set a fucking _Demo-thing _on them, for God’s sake! And _now…_ they’re training us. We’ve proved our loyalty. They _think _they have us under control. Certainly enough to hand us guns. So we play along. We take their training. We work out what exactly they’re planning. We play along for long enough to screw it up.”

“Billy, how’s that going to end any differently than it did last time?” Steve said exasperatedly. “We’re just going to get ourselves killed.”

“_Because,_” Billy said, a light in his eyes. “I’ve got a plan to escape.”

Steve kept his unimpressed façade up, but Billy noticed his eyes widen a fraction in interest.

“They’re going to be taking us back to Hawkins,” Billy explained. “That’s our biggest use to them. They want that girl, so they want to use us to get to her.”

Steve nodded, the unimpressed façade slipping slightly.

“What if we play along until we get to Hawkins?” Billy suggested. “Then… we’re on home turf. We know where we are. We work out what exactly they’re planning, and then we’re… _selective _about what we tell them.”

“So we set a trap for them in Hawkins?” Steve’s eyes widened, the unimpressed façade falling away completely.

“A trap, or else just screw up their plan.”

“Hang on,” Steve said, his face breaking into an excited grin. “If we’re right, if they’re going to build a machine in the Upside Down to open up a Gate in Hawkins, we could destroy it and trap them on the wrong side.”

“And then we find a way to escape,” Billy finished. “We’ll be in Hawkins – we _know _what’s in Hawkins. We know the Other Side Up there better than _anyone._”

Steve’s smile slipped suddenly at Billy’s words. “Not everyone,” he said softly. “The Mind Flayer is still there. It’s still in Ozerov. You said you remembered some things from when _Will _was possessed, it probably knows things from when _you _were possessed. We… we can’t outrun it in the Upside Down.”

Billy paused, thinking for a moment. He ran a hand through his short hair, before –

“So we don’t outrun it in the Upside Down,” Billy said.

“What?”

“You jumped through the Gate,” Billy continued. “Back in Starcourt, you jumped through the Gate before it closed.”

“That was different,” Steve said. “Hopper – Chief Hopper blew up the Gate from somewhere else. I got through the Gate before he triggered the explosion.”

“Yes, but _this _is different now,” Billy ploughed on. “I know how to destroy the machine – not with that shit you pulled in Hawkins, but we can reverse the electromagnetic field and-”

“Billy, _English,_” Steve said before Billy got any further with an explanation that Steve was not going to understand.

Billy rolled his eyes. “It’s a matter of swapping over two cables. We do that, we run through the Gate before it closes, and _hopefully…_ the machine goes bang.”

“You really think there’s _time _to outrun that?”

Billy pulled an uncomfortable face. “We’ll be talking _seconds_ here. If I’m right – and that _is _a big ‘if’ – the machine will shut down as it becomes unstable. I think the Gate will stay open for a moment – long enough for us to get through it if we’re right by the Gate, but we’ll be outrunning an explosion, not the Gate.”

“Okay, but what if we’re _wrong?_” Steve asked. “What if the machine _doesn’t _blow up? What if they just reset the two cables we swapped over and open the Gate right back up again?”

“Well, then we’re on the other side of the Gate,” Billy said. “We’ll be back _home_. It won’t just be _us_ anymore.”

Steve was not prepared for just how gut-wrenching the prospect of _‘home’ _was going to be. His eyes fell shut as his breath shook. He brought up his hands to cover his face, leaning back and feeling tears prick his eyes.

“We don’t take stupid risks,” Steve breathed at last. “I _mean _it, Billy, I’m _not _watching them hurt you again.”

Billy managed to look serious for long enough to nod, a tentative smile starting to spread across his face. “Okay.”

“And – and if we _are _going to help the Mind Flayer get to Hawkins… I want to try and find a way to warn the others. We’re not just putting _ourselves _at risk here, we’re putting all of _them _at risk, too.”

Billy stayed silent.

“Billy, I mean it – if this doesn’t work, if we end up getting ourselves killed, I don’t want them to be caught off-guard. We’re opening them up to a _huge _danger here. I want them-”

He broke off, swallowing down the lump in his throat.

“If _we _can’t stop the Mind Flayer… I want them to be prepared.”

-:-

The snow that started to blanket Hawkins seemed to be promising a white Christmas, but despite the storybook aesthetic that Linda came home to, she was hardly feeling festive.

The white snow curled outside the floor-to-ceiling window in their living room as she sat by the roaring fire. Normally the house would be decked out in holly, making it highly impractical to use the bannister, with a Christmas tree in the far corner of the room, but she hadn’t found the motivation to organise it this year. With Paul still vanishing before the sun came up and not coming back until beyond late, and no Steven around to try and force her into a festive spirit, she had no inclination to celebrate.

Linda’s worry had not abated in the weeks since her last disastrous attempt to talk to Paul. They hadn’t attempted to talk about it since, defaulting instead to the tactic that had allowed them to live in an unhappy marriage of ignoring and avoiding the problem in a state of denial. Paul had made a token effort to come home a little earlier, arriving at home in time for dinner for most of the next week, but it wasn’t long before he called to say that he had a late night at the office, which turned into two late nights in three days, which turned back into Paul stumbling into the house at ten o’clock at night before locking himself in his office again. The shadows under his eyes were getting darker, the lines in his face seemed to be getting more pronounced, and she wasn’t sure if it was her mind playing tricks on her but there seemed to be more grey hairs on his head.

Whatever was going on was sucking the life out of Paul.

She’d considered not waiting up for Paul when she finally heard the car pull up in the driveway. She’d eaten dinner already, with what was left of the casserole sitting in a ceramic dish on the counter. The television had already proven to be useless, with the ten o’clock news having come and gone, giving way instead to ridiculously cheery Christmas movies that she was _not _in the mood for. Instead, she’d opted to sit in an armchair by the fire with a book, the room illuminated by the warm glow of a table lamp.

She heard the front door go, heard the shuffling as Paul left his coat on the coat rack. She internally started a count when the noise stopped – it had become a habit of hers to time how long Paul took in the hallway after he’d shed his coat, gathering his thoughts together before coming and seeing her. It was yet another way she could measure how well he was doing. The time he was taking was getting longer – he’d broken a hundred seconds the previous week, and today looked like he was going for a new record.

A hundred and fourteen seconds. Still not his _record,_ but close. He might break two minutes by Christmas.

Paul walked into the living room slowly, his shoulders slumped.

“Hey,” she said softly, looking up at him.

He closed his eyes for a second before pulling them open again. “Hey,” he breathed.

“There’s casserole in the kitchen,” she said. “Heat it up if you’re hungry.”

He managed to pull the corners of his lips up into a brave attempt at a smile. “Thanks.”

She turned back to her book but watched him go into the kitchen out of the corner of her eye. He was still tired – _too tired_ – but she didn’t know what, if anything, she could do –

A crash resounded from the kitchen, followed by some extremely loud swearing. Linda pulled herself up, a frown settling on her face as she braced herself for the damage.

_And wasn’t ‘damage’ the word?_ The ceramic dish lay in pieces on the floor, the casserole that had been inside it sent in a mess over the tiles. Paul was on the floor with a cloth, trying to wipe it up as best he could, but without much success.

“What happened?” Linda asked, stopping in the doorway.

Paul didn’t look up, his movements jerky as he wiped the floor, only really succeeding in spreading the mess around.

“My – my hand slipped,” Paul said. “I – It’s fine, Linda, I’ll clean it up.”

Linda raised a sceptical eyebrow at Paul’s back, watching as he got increasingly frustrated for less than ten seconds before stepping in.

“Paul, let _me_ do it,” she said.

“No – no, I’ve got it, Linda-”

“Paul-”

“No, I’ve got it – I’ve got it-”

“_Paul!_” Linda put a hand on his shoulder and knelt down and took the cloth.

“_Fine!_” he snapped, yielding the cloth with a snap, holding his hands up in an annoyed surrender.

Linda tried to give him a reassuring look. “Just… go sit down in the living room. I’ll sort it and find something else for you.”

Paul sighed, his face screwing up for a fraction before he finally retreated out of the room. Linda set about clearing up the broken casserole dish before putting together a straightforward sandwich and taking it through to the living room on a plate.

She found Paul sitting on the couch, resting his head on his hand, his eyes closed and his face set in a mask of discomfort. She set the plate down on the coffee table in front of him firmly. He blearily opened his eyes at the sound of porcelain hitting wood, giving her an exhausted but grateful look. She went over to the cabinet in the far corner of the room and pulled out two lowball glasses and poured a sensible measure of an Islay single malt scotch into each before sitting down in the armchair opposite Paul and setting one of the glasses down on the table.

“Paul, what’s going on with you?” she asked.

She kept her tone neutral. There was no anger anymore, she just wanted to _know._ Paul looked down at the glass and the sandwich in front of him, his eyes falling closed again.

“Linda…” he breathed but trailed off into silence.

“Paul, have you even _seen _yourself lately? You look _terrible._ You’re not sleeping, you’re coming home late, and I swear to God if you give me that _bullshit _again about how hard it is to run the town, I swear to God, I will slap you into next year.”

Paul’s eyes stayed closed, his face still turned towards the coffee table.

“Paul, I’m not even _mad_ anymore, I’m just _worried,_” she explained. “Not about our _marriage, _not about our future or anything, I’m just worried about _you._ There’s something going on with you, and I want to _help,_ I – I want to make things better, but I _can’t _if you keep shutting me out. Whatever it is… we can do it together, just _please…_ Talk to me, Paul.”

Paul rubbed at his eyes, letting out a long, shaky breath.

“This is killing you,” Linda reached across and tried to take his hand. “And I… I can’t lose you as well.”

Her fingers brushed his and when he didn’t immediately pull them away, she took that as an invitation to take his hand in hers. He finally opened his eyes and looked down at her hand, his breath coming in shaky exhales.

“Linda, I…” he trailed off, looking down at her hand. “I don’t want you to…”

“Worry?” Linda finished with a huff of laughter. “I think it’s a bit late for that.”

“No, not…” he took another deep breath, his eyes falling shut again. “I… I don’t want you involved in this… I don’t want you to spiral-”

He broke off again, leaving Linda more confused than before. He pulled his hand out of hers, running it up over his face and through his hair.

“Paul,” she breathed, finally starting to guess at a hint of what was going on. “Whatever it is… I can _take _it. I’m – I’m _meant _to be your wife. We’re _meant _to be a team in this. I know – I know it’s been hard… but – I’m in a much better place than I was. If there’s something wrong, I can _help _you.”

Paul fell back against the couch cushions, passing his hand back over his face. The truth was that he _wanted _to tell her. He was _so tired _of doing this on his own, trying to keep what he’d thought to himself, keeping his own private investigation into everything from Hopper, from Linda, with all of the questions he had swirling in his head, each getting tangled up in the others with no clear way of finding an answer to any of them.

He couldn’t do this on his own anymore.

“Linda…” he finally breathed. “Promise me – promise me that _no matter_ _what,_ you won’t lose your head again. Promise me that you won’t start looking for ways for Steven to be alive again. Promise me that you _know _he’s gone.”

She frowned at him, her gut twisting uncomfortably with trepidation at Paul’s words.

“I… I know he’s gone, Paul, but what-”

She broke off as he gave her a strange look that seemed to go right through her. He took a deep breath as she stared into his grey eyes.

“I think there’s something else going on with Starcourt,” he said softly. “Something they’re not telling us.”

She felt Paul’s words like a gut punch. “_What?_”

“I don’t know what it is,” he said. “But there are just too many unanswered questions. I’m trying to find answers, but every time I get close to an answer, another question pops up. Larry Kline – he tried to _tell _me that there was something going on with Starcourt – something that Hopper and the government are covering up, and I – I thought he was _crazy_. But then I realised that Starcourt had been buying up land in East Hawkins. I _went _to one of them – the place was completely gutted except for a machine in the basement. I think it’s got something to do with the Department of Energy. There have been problems with power cuts in East Hawkins ever since the fourth of July, so I contacted the Department of Energy. They’ve been handling the Starcourt Inquiry, and I’ve been _trying _to get something from them – _anything _– but they’re saying they’re not at liberty to disclose anything until the inquiry is wrapped up. Hopper tried to tell me it was nothing… that I was looking for patterns where there weren’t any, and he-”

He choked on the words that lodged in his throat. Linda kept looking at him as he took a moment to collect himself, his eyes falling shut. He opened his eyes again to meet her large brown orbs that were shining with concern – _and God, if that didn’t remind him of Steven…_

“He said that the reason I’d been digging so hard was because I wanted to try and fix things between me and Steven, and – and _maybe _he was right, but – it doesn’t make _sense._ I feel like I’m losing my _mind,_ I don’t know what’s real and what’s in my head anymore, whether I _am _just making things up to cope like you did, but there’s just – just _so much _that doesn’t make sense about it.”

Linda rubbed her hand on Paul’s arm as he leant back with his eyes shut, feeling how much he was shaking under her touch.

“Paul,” she breathed. “Paul, _look at me._”

Paul lifted his head slightly and focused on her.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Linda said. “I don’t think you’re losing your mind.”

Paul swallowed, looking into her eyes with overwhelming gratitude.

“You can’t carry all this on your own,” Linda said, trying for a smile. “I _know,_ because as you may well remember, I _tried._ You’re exhausted. But it’s okay, because _now, _I’m going to help you.”

-:-

“_Move your feet!_”

The instruction barked in Russian was clearly aimed at Billy, because Steve usually needed the opposite instruction. He was fast, dancing out of Billy’s reach as Billy swung his fist. He moved forward, catching Billy’s wrist just as Billy finally heeded the instruction to move his feet. Steve used it to his advantage, swinging his own leg around and catching the inside of Billy’s ankle. Steve planted his right foot down as he brought his left leg towards him, Billy’s sudden lightness on his own feet loosening up his stance enough for Steve to pull him off-balance, sending him crashing down to the floor.

It was the last advantage that Steve needed, twisting the wrist still in his hand up behind Billy’s back into an armlock as he lay on his front.

“Look who finally learnt when to plant their feet,” Billy joked, his head tilting slightly sideways as he spoke at a volume that only they could hear.

Steve let go, straightening up and offering out a hand for Billy. Billy took it, and Steve bent down to whisper to him.

“If I was being an asshole, I’d crack some smart-ass comment about footwork and drop you right now.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not an asshole like me, then, isn’t it?”

Steve grinned at Billy, finally hauling him to his feet. Billy returned the gesture, his sense of humour not dulled by his defeat.

It had been at least two weeks since Billy had spoken to Steve about how he’d been holding back, and Steve, with a new reason that he believed in, was now starting to fully engage in the training he was being offered.

“_Good work,_” Volkov said to Steve. “_At last your use to Comrade General Ozerov finally seems to be manifesting._”

Steve gave a slightly awkward nod at the backhanded compliment, slipping into Russian. “_Thank you._”

Both Billy and Steve’s Russian had reached a point where they were now understanding most of what was being shouted at them. Steve still seemed to have the edge when it came to speaking, but Billy was getting increasingly comfortable with the language. Their accents were both appalling, as they’d repeatedly been told, but if they were honest, neither of them felt that it was a priority.

“_You,_” Volkov rounded on Billy. “_You should not need to be told to move your feet. You need to be faster. At the moment, you are slow. You lose the element of surprise._”

“_Sorry,_” was all Billy could manage.

“_Sorry is useless,_” Volkov said dismissively. “_Sorry will not save you from a punch to the face._”

If Billy had possessed the same lack of self-preservation as he’d had when he’d first met Steve, he might have made a comment about how the word ‘sorry’ _had _in fact saved him from punches to the face many times with his own father, but he decided against it. For one thing, he wasn’t sure his limited Russian would stretch that far.

“_Go,_” Volkov said. “_Shower, then shooting range in twenty minutes. We may make you both useful after all._”

It was a common jab of Volkov’s. He’d been making it since the beginning – more towards Billy initially, as Billy was the one who showed promise, but since Billy had convinced Steve to stop holding back, he had started to include Steve in the closest thing to a compliment Volkov seemed to be capable of giving them.

The fact of the matter was, though, that Steve and Billy had taken to the training exceptionally. They were getting faster in the sparring sessions they shared, with Steve proving to have a slight edge as he reacted quicker to the ever-changing situation. Billy still had the edge on the shooting range, with years of hunting trips with a former military father providing a foundation that Steve lacked, but the gap was closing fast. Steve, now that he’d worked out just how to plant his feet and control the recoil on the gun, had proven himself to have a good eye for the targets. The paper outlines of silhouettes often found themselves with what would be deadly bullet holes in their chests and heads.

Steve followed Billy into the shower, standing under the freezing water and running a hand through his hair. It was starting to grow again, as was Billy’s, to the point where Volkov had started making noises about getting it cut again. Steve wasn’t too worried about that – provided that they didn’t decide that he needed a new brand in his shoulder, he was long past caring what needed to be done to his hair.

“It looks like _someone’s _not holding back,” Billy broke the silence, looking down at what would undoubtedly become a quite spectacular bruise on his side.

Steve winced at the sight of it. “You _asked _me to stop holding back,” he said, trying to keep the guilt out of his voice.

“Relax, Steve, it’s fine,” Billy laughed. “It was a good fight. Even if I _did _give you that opening.”

“You did _not,_” Steve scoffed.

Billy tilted his head cockily.

“You _wish _you gave me that opening,” Steve laughed. “I kicked your ass, fair and square.”

“Whatever you say, darling,” Billy gave him a simpering look of affection. Steve shoved him with an unimpressed glare.

The ice-cold showers did not encourage them to hang around, and they were on the shooting range in fifteen minutes. They were surprised, however, when Volkov waved them over to a room beyond the gallery itself.

They walked into a large high-ceilinged room that looked slightly like a warehouse, with plywood walls set up almost like a maze. The lighting in the room was dim. Steve, from the limited understanding he had gleaned from movies, would have hazarded a guess that it was meant to simulate nighttime.

“_We will try something different today,_” Volkov explained in Russian. “_Comrade General Ozerov has decided that you are both ready to try a simulation. You are going to move through the room and take out the enemies. You are not to shoot the civilians. You are not to leave any enemies standing. We will see how long it takes for you to clear the room._”

“_How will we know who the enemies are?_” Steve asked in dreadfully mispronounced Russian.

“_You will know,_” Volkov said coldly. “_You will be using live rounds, so try not to shoot each other, because if you do, it will hurt._”

“_What about the enemies?_” Steve asked.

Volkov gave him an unimpressed look. “_The enemies are not real people._”

Steve nodded, starting to catch up. Volkov muttered something that Steve could have sworn blind was the word _‘idiot’ _under his breath as he handed them both handguns.

“_Very well,_” Volkov said. “_Are you ready?_”

Steve and Billy nodded.

“_Go!_”

-:-

Paul had to admit that opening up to Linda was possibly the best decision he’d made.

She was smart enough to start getting things out of Paul’s head and down onto paper. She already had copies of most of the articles that had originated after Starcourt, and the ones she didn’t have were promptly sourced from the library.

She also took the liberty of getting all the articles on the Department of Energy. Paul had been ever so slightly alarmed to come home the day after opening up to her to find several large manila files stacked on his desk, each carefully labelled with their subject and status of relevance.

She also asked Paul to talk her through everything that he’d been told. She made meticulous notes on a pad of paper about everything he’d heard from his conversations with Larry Kline, Tommy Hagan, Henry Cristall, Sam Owens, and Jim Hopper.

Having hard copies of everything started to make it easier to clear up the picture. Paul tried not to think about just how much his study was resembling an insane conspiracy theorist’s lair – all that was missing was the obligatory corkboard – but he had to admit that the picture was starting to clear.

Starcourt had blown up on the fourth of July. The Department of Energy had been sent to investigate. They had discovered Kline had been involved. Kline had been arrested and sent to prison after pleading guilty to corruption charges. Kline, however, claimed that he hadn’t been charged with corruption, but rather treason, claiming that Starcourt Industries was a Russian company. Starcourt had been buying up land in East Hawkins, to the point where they had used Kline to force residents off their land. One of the properties had been gutted, with all that was left was a burnt-out machine. The other properties in the area that were still inhabited were still suffering problems with localised power outages. The Department of Energy were aware of this and investigating but were dragging their feet and refusing to talk to anyone. The man from the Department of Energy in charge of the investigation, Doctor Sam Owens, was also the man who had been in charge of the Starcourt Inquiry, who had found time to show Paul and Linda Steven’s body at a time when even the coroner had been available. Chief Hopper was somehow involved. He had been there when Steven had died, and had come to Paul to try and get him to back off.

Paul was staring at the pages scattered around the place while Linda was still reading through most of the articles she’d found on the Department of Energy. The questions still swirled in his mind: _how was Hopper involved in all this? What did any of this have to do with the Soviets? What was the Department of Energy so determined to hide?_

Linda suddenly looked up at Paul, her eyes wide.

“Paul,” she said. “Have you seen _this?_”

She held up an article, a photo of Barbara Holland underneath a headline.

_HAWKINS LABORATORY SHUT DOWN IN FATAL SCANDAL_

Paul nodded. “Yeah, I saw that.”

“It says that Hawkins Lab was responsible for that girl’s death.”

Paul vividly remembered reading that very same article over and over again in the library. “I know.”

Linda looked at him incredulously. “It _says_ that the Department of Energy ran the Lab.”

Paul swallowed. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I know.”

Linda was still giving him that incredulous look. “Paul, you didn’t think to _mention _this?” she asked.

Paul looked at the floor with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I… I think it slipped my mind.”

Linda stood up, stepping over carefully arranged piles of paper as she walked over to put the article over with the rest of the pages on the Department of Energy. “Paul, what does it say about the fact that the Starcourt Inquiry is being handled by the same people who covered up the death of a girl?”

“We don’t _know _it’s the same people,” Paul said.

Linda’s face suddenly lit up. “Yes, we _do,_” she said.

Paul frowned at her. “What?”

“Hang on,” she said, vanishing out the door, leaving him standing at his desk, looking at the door with complete confusion.

She emerged a minute later, another manila folder tucked under her arm. She set it down on the desk and flipped it open. Paul recognised it instantly as the file she’d collated when she was convinced that Steven was still alive.

“Will Byers,” she explained animatedly. “Around the time that he went missing and he was found, the man in charge of the Laboratory died suddenly. There was an article I found about how he was replaced…”

She trailed off as she frantically flicked through the folder before pulling out an article and handing it to Paul. His stomach dropped at the headline.

_OWENS TAKES OVER HAWKINS LABORATORY_

It was dated almost two years previously. It explained how Doctor Sam Owens had been appointed as Doctor Martin Brenner’s replacement following the latter’s sudden death.

“That’s _it, _Paul,” she said softly. “That’s the link.”

Paul fell back against the desk, leaning on it heavily.

“Oh my god,” he breathed. “It’s _linked,_ all of it. Hawkins Lab, Starcourt, it’s all linked.”

“They must be covering something up,” Linda said. “Something big. Maybe a _weapon_ or something.”

“The girl,” Paul said. “She was exposed to a chemical asphyxiant. Something they were developing to use against the Soviets. The Department of Energy covered it up so that they wouldn’t find out.”

“But if Kline was telling the truth, then the Soviets _did _find out,” Linda continued. “They built Starcourt as a cover to come here. They started buying up land here for their operation.”

“Only, the Department of Energy _knew _about it,” Paul said. “They knew about their operation and they shut it down. They-”

He broke off as a horrendous realisation shot through him like lightning. His eyes fell shut and he fell back against the desk. His hands started shaking as he clutched the desk for support.

“Paul?” Linda asked, concern flooding her voice. “Paul, are you okay?”

Paul barely heard her. A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. He felt like he was going to throw up. His breath felt short as he started shaking.

“They blew up the mall,” he breathed, his voice barely more than a whisper. “It wasn’t a fire – it was _deliberate._ The Department of Energy blew up Starcourt.”

Linda’s eyes widened. They looked as round as dinner plates.

“Owens – he must have done this…” Paul breathed. “He must have sanctioned this to stop the Soviets from finding out about it. And _Hopper, _too – he’s in on it somehow-”

“Joyce Byers,” Linda breathed. Her voice was shaking almost as much as Paul’s. “She was – she was there too.”

Paul opened his eyes to look at her. She was leaning on the back of a chair, staring at the floor.

“I went to see her after… after it _happened,_” she explained, sounding slightly choked. “When you left and – and I thought there was a chance Steven was alive. She told me… she told me she was there too. At Starcourt. She told me she saw it happen.”

“Oh my God,” Paul breathed. “The whole family’s involved, aren’t they?”

Linda looked at him, a horrified agreement in her eyes.

“Will Byers didn’t just get lost in the woods,” Paul ran his hand through his hair again. “He must have stumbled upon something. The Department of Energy must have tried to cover it up. They got Hopper onside somehow, and he helped make everything go away for them.”

“But why… why would the Government want to kill all those people?” Linda asked. “There were thirty people who died in that explosion. The mall should have been _empty,_ but instead they chose a night where Steven was there, and Janet and Tom Holloway-”

Paul’s head suddenly snapped up. “Tom Holloway,” he breathed. “He must have been onto something.”

Linda frowned at him, confused.

“Tom Holloway and that other journalist – they were killed in that explosion. They must have been closing in on the story.”

“What?”

“The story they fed the press,” Paul explained. “It was that they were doing a feature on how the mall was changing the landscape of Hawkins. It was bullshit, but _Tom_ – he _must _have been working on a story. He must have been onto this. He was closing in on the truth – he was going to expose the Department of Energy for what they really were, but the Government must have decided that rather than let that happen, they’d kill him in the same explosion that would then take out Starcourt. Kill two birds with one stone.”

“And his _family?_” Linda asked, sounding more horrified with each word.

“They might have known too,” Paul explained. “Or at least, the Department of Energy wasn’t prepared to take the chance that they _did._ So they killed them all and wrote the whole thing off as a tragic accident.”

“But…” Linda stammered. “How would they have _known _all this?”

Paul’s eyes squeezed shut. “Jonathan Byers,” he breathed. “He was working at the Hawkins Post with Nancy Wheeler at the time. He’d gotten a summer internship there. He found out that Tom was getting close to the truth – to _whatever _they were up to there – and tells his mother. Joyce Byers tells Hopper, Hopper tells the Department of Energy, who start to put things in motion.”

“And Steven?”

Paul looked her dead in the eyes with that horrible look that seemed to go straight through her. It seemed to span a thousand years before it reached her.

“He must have known, too,” Paul breathed.

“Oh my God,” Linda breathed, horror washing over her like a wave as she leant heavily on the back of her chair. “What – what do we do now? Do we go to the police? Do we go to the press? Do we try and have them arrested?”

Paul let out a long breath, his eyes falling shut. “No,” he breathed. “Not yet. All the evidence we have is circumstantial. It’s easy to bury. We… we need something more. We need to find out what they’re hiding. What they are prepared to kill dozens of people to keep secret.”

“But… how do we do that?” Linda asked.

Paul suddenly pushed himself off his desk with a jolt. “I don’t know,” he said, a fire starting in him that gave him strength. “But I will be _damned_ if I let them get away with this.”

His voice rose to a dangerous level. He was shaking uncontrollably, his hands trembling as he stood surrounded by papers.

“Paul, we need to be careful-”

“They _killed _him, Linda!” he suddenly yelled, spinning around to face him and sending papers flying. “They killed Steven – this wasn’t just an accident waiting to happen – they _took _him from us – they killed Tom, and Janet, and they-”

His voice broke off, his breath coming in desperate shudders as he found a sob choking him.

“_They took my son from me!_” he finally gasped out, his face screwing up as tears started to slip down his cheeks. “They took my son – my only son-”

Linda suddenly found herself wrapping her arms around him as she pulled him against her. He clutched at her desperately as he broke down completely. She felt tears slipping down her own face as she held her sobbing husband against her, holding him up as she leant him against the desk. She pulled away enough to take his face in both of her hands, looking at him with brown eyes that shone with burning rage and grief.

“I know,” she said earnestly, her voice, like her whole body, shaking with emotion. “I know. And we will make them pay. We will make _every single one of them _pay for taking him away from us. We will not let them get away with this. But we have to be careful. They killed Tom Holloway because he got too close. We can’t let them know that we know. We will find out what they are hiding, and we will expose _all_ of them for the murderers that they are. We will bury them in the ground. We will get justice for him – for all of them.”

Paul stared at her, her nose less than an inch from his.

“I swear to you, Paul,” she breathed. “We will get justice for our son.”

-:-

Steve and Billy hadn’t realised their own abilities as a team until their first live training exercise.

The wooden pop-up targets – often drawn as grotesque stereotypes of how the Russians must have viewed Americans – in what Steve had jokingly nicknamed ‘_The Maze_’ had given way over the weeks to a regular training exercise against other soldiers. Steve and Billy were set against two other teams of two in an exercise with simulated rounds that fired paint.

The rules had been simple – if they were shot, they were dead. The last team standing won.

Steve had been forced to concede that under different circumstances, running around a maze shooting other people with fake guns might have been immensely fun. It had an immersive quality of Dungeons and Dragons, but rather than getting lost in the story, he found himself getting lost in the fight.

He and Billy wordlessly agreed on an offensive strategy – sweep through the Maze methodically. They were aware that their biggest asset was how they worked together, and they were not prepared to split up to cover more ground.

They moved quietly, making sure their footsteps didn’t echo around the room. They kept their eyes out for any movement in the darkened room, the only light a single fluorescent bulb over the doorway at the entrance to the Maze. Billy kept his eyes on what was in front of them, while Steve had opted to make sure nobody was behind them.

A sudden noise around the corner – little more than a rustle of fabric – had Steve gesturing towards the wall. He and Billy pressed themselves against the plywood, keeping close to each other.

Billy listened intently as he heard footsteps – the people around the corner were trying to keep quiet, but there were two distinct footfall patterns. Billy looked at Steve, who glanced quickly back down the passage behind them before turning to look at Billy.

Billy pointed to Steve and down at the floor. He then pointed at his own chest and then at the corner, before pointing at Steve and then at the corner and at his gun. Steve nodded in understanding.

Billy raised three fingers and counted down to zero.

He moved quickly, jumping out and firing off a single round, catching one of the soldiers in the neck. The second soldier aimed a shot at Billy, firing off as Billy sidestepped. The paint splattered against the plywood behind where he’d been standing just moments ago. Steve moved, leaning around the corner and aiming a second shot off at the remaining soldier, catching him in the chest.

Billy looked at him appreciatively as he stepped down the passageway towards the recently shot soldiers, who looked distinctly unhappy about being taken out quite so suddenly. Steve made to follow, but caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye.

He jumped around the corner as two paint rounds slammed into the plywood where he’d been standing moments earlier, the second team having come up behind them. Steve crouched, hoping the height change might give him a split-second advantage before spinning around out from behind the corner onto one knee and firing off two rounds. He saw the paint splatter over the dark overalls and straightened up as he caught sounds of Russian curses that Volkov had neglected to teach them.

Adrenaline coursed through Steve’s body as he glanced at Billy. The grin on Billy’s face that had moments earlier been shock at the sound of paint against plywood held a slightly incredulous quality. Steve watched as understanding dawned over his face as he felt his own surprise blossom.

They’d just taken out four trained soldiers in less than a minute.

They walked out of the Maze after the soldiers covered in paint. Once they stepped into the light, they saw that the red splashes of paint on the soldiers’ overalls were at critical points. The team that had tried to sneak up on Steve both had splatters directly in the centre of their chests – they would have been kill shots if they’d been using live ammunition.

“_Not bad,_” Volkov said in the most generous compliment Volkov had given them to date. “_Take the overalls off. We are done for the day._”

Billy and Steve peeled away the spotless overalls that they’d pulled on over their uniforms. They found themselves being led back to their cell by two of the soldiers they’d just shot – including the one Billy had shot in the neck. While the overalls they’d all been wearing had stopped the worst of the paint getting on his uniform, he was still left with paint splattered all over his neck that was not going to go away without a very long shower. Beneath it, Billy could see bruising starting to form – clearly the simulated rounds hurt.

They were shoved into the cell more roughly than necessary – the soldiers’ defeat in the Maze had burnt their pride enough for them to want to exercise some form of power over Billy and Steve. The door slammed shut and the key turned in the lock.

Steve sat down on the floor, head bowed, looking slightly incredulous. Billy stayed standing, watching him with a raised eyebrow. His second eyebrow shot up to join the first as Steve started laughing, a hand running through his short hair.

“I’ve got to admit, Billy, you were right,” Steve murmured.

“Of course I was,” Billy gave Steve a withering look. “Which bit was I right about?”

Steve looked up at Billy, a slightly hysterical smile on his face. “The whole _training _thing,” he explained, with a gesture at his uniform. “I was sceptical at first – I mean, they want people they can _control_ – but after today… I think we might actually have a shot of pulling this thing off.”

“You mean taking out the machine and getting back to Hawkins?”

Steve started laughing again. “Yeah,” he said breathlessly.

Billy came and sat down next to Steve, a ghost of a frown crossing his face as Steve fell sideways into his lap, still laughing hysterically. Billy raised an eyebrow as he put a hand on Steve’s head, unable to bite back the smirk of amusement at Steve’s reaction to the day.

“I can’t believe it,” Steve breathed between laughs. “_Any _of it. Every time I think about this whole situation, it just… it _baffles_ me. I can’t believe we’re in _Russia_. I can’t believe that we’re working for the Russians_. _I can’t believe that the Russians have _trained_ us – to the point where we can take them out. I can’t believe that we’re planning on blowing up a machine we’re helping them build. Most of all, I can’t believe that I’m stuck here with _Billy Hargrove. _I _really _can’t believe that I’m _fucking _Billy Hargrove.”

Billy rolled his eyes at Steve’s head in his lap with a hum. Steve tilted his head slightly to look up at Billy.

“Like, _seriously,_” Steve said. “If you’d told me when I got that job at Scoops Ahoy that it was going to lead to me sleeping with you in a Russian cell while secretly plotting ways to take down an alliance between the Soviet Union and an interdimensional monster, I would have punched you in the face.”

Billy gave a small shrug at that. “I might not have objected to the _‘sleeping with you’ _part,” he joked. “Could do without the Russian cell though. Or the interdimensional monster.”

Steve smiled up at Billy. “Yeah,” he breathed. “But _if _your crazy plan works, we might make it home.”

Billy’s smile dropped slightly, and he looked up at the walls. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Then we only need to worry about the rest of Hawkins.”

Steve noticed the slight fall in Billy’s face. He searched with his hand to find Billy’s free one by his side and squeezed it reassuringly. Billy gave him a small smile and looked back down at him.

“I don’t know if this is a positive thing, but hey, it might not work,” Steve said with a macabrely upbeat swing. “There are, quite literally, _hundreds _of ways it could go wrong. And then we don’t have to worry about the rest of Hawkins at all.”

Billy couldn’t stop the surprised snort of laughter that burst forth from him. He found himself giggling hysterically, setting Steve off again. The pair of them broke down laughing, Billy falling over Steve so that they ended up in a tangle of limbs. Billy worked hard to extricate himself from Steve, elbowing him in the face as he looked at Steve with stunned, incredulous amusement.

“You _need _to work on comforting people,” Billy said, shaking his head. “That was – that was _terrible!_”

“Hey, it got you laughing,” Steve giggled dismissively.

Billy rolled his eyes again, shaking his head hopelessly at Steve.

“Do you think we’ll pull it off?” Steve finally said.

“What?”

“Our madhouse escape plan,” Steve said. “What do you think the chances of pulling it off are?”

Billy looked away from Steve with a shrug. “Honestly? Low. But I don’t-”

He broke off, swallowing as he looked at Steve.

“I want to _try,_” Billy said. “For Max. For everyone back home that we could save. For – for everyone I _couldn’t_.”

He closed his eyes, feeling his face tighten with pain, his jaw locking. Steve found his hand again and decided on a slightly less morbid attempt at cheering him up.

“It wasn’t _you,_ Billy,” Steve said. “I _know _it wasn’t you. _Max _knows. Everyone who matters knows that it wasn’t you.”

“I should have stopped it-”

“_How?_” Steve cut him off. “It took us basically _incinerating _Will Byers to get that thing out of him the first time. It didn’t leave you until you were about to be _killed_. It had control of your every move. You _can’t_ – there was nothing you could have done, Billy. The only person who doesn’t seem to get that is _you._”

Billy didn’t manage a smile this time but looked at Steve gratefully. Steve slung an arm around his shoulder and pulled him close to his chest.

“We’re going to do everything we can to screw up their plan,” Steve said softly, a burning fire of determination audible in every word. “We’re going to go warn the others, we’re going to destroy that machine, and we’re going to stop that thing. Whatever it takes.”

Billy finally snaked an arm behind Steve’s back and rested a hand around his waist, closing the last of the gap between them.

“Yeah,” Billy breathed. “All we have to do is wait.”

-:-

They didn’t have to wait long.

It was less than a week before someone came to their cell for something other than their usual routine. Billy woke in the middle of the night to a key scraping in the lock. Steve was already awake, and at the sound of the key, he was on his feet. Billy followed suit, looking warily at the door.

The hinges creaked as the metal door swung open to reveal Ozerov, gracing their cell with his presence for the first time since Steve had arrived in Russia.

“Well, Butterscotch,” he said softly, a sinister and triumphant smile on his face. “Are you ready to go home?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was almost 13000 words... Not entirely sure how that happened, but we're here now...
> 
> With regards to the Lucas/Max/Stacey scene, I've been in the position far, FAR too many times where I've just been swept up in the moment in something I wasn't comfortable with, not entirely sure how to say no without hurting someone's feelings. Fortunately, I'm lucky in the sense that this never went beyond (or even as far as) what happened to Lucas, but I did kind of want to explore it for my own personal sanity. Also flipping the stereotypical genders on their head and exploring how this can happen to men as well and the societal pressures that have been imposed on them is a huge point of interest for me, because he's EXPECTED to be up for it and therefore 'deserving of shame' for not being up for it, whereas with women it's very much 'it doesn't matter if they're not up for it.' I really wanted to explore that, particularly given that Lucas has always struck me as the most mature of the boys in that particular respect, and I really wanted to play around with that dynamic. (But more on that later...)
> 
> As for the rest of the story... I am SO. EXCITED. FOR WHAT'S COMING NEXT! I'll give you all three guesses what's coming in the next chapter, and I'll say we're getting very close to the reason I wanted to write this story in the first place.


	34. Part 3 Chapter 13: U.S.S. Butterscotch: Out Of This World

Steve slipped the black woollen tube mask over his face as he glanced over at Billy, his heart thundering in his chest. Billy looked back at him with an equally grave expression as he fiddled with his own mask.

It wasn’t much, the material stopping just above the bridge of Steve’s nose, but Steve reasoned that he’d largely survived in the Upside Down for… he still wasn’t entirely sure how long without even this much protection. The atmosphere there, while dangerous, evidently wasn’t fatal on its own.

They were in the armoury with Volkov and several other soldiers wearing either black or dark khaki uniforms. One of the soldiers handed them both handguns in holsters that were clearly meant to go on their belts. Once Steve had worked out how to fit the holster in place, he was then handed a cardboard box that felt much heavier than he was expecting.

“_Spare bullets,_” the soldier said in Russian with an unimpressed smirk. “_You will need more than the six bullets in your gun in America._”

Steve nodded in understanding, putting the cardboard box in the bottom of the black backpack on the bench in front of him. He straightened up before looking down at the objects the soldier was currently offering to them.

“_For use on those monsters,_” the soldier explained as Steve took the taser. “_One charge each. Fatal to the monsters, so it will definitely kill you if you are shot with one._”

Steve felt the weight of the taser in his hands. It was as large as the one that they’d seen Stepanov use on the Demogorgon, the weight feeling uncomfortable in his hands.

“_Comrade General Ozerov thinks that he has the monsters under control, but I do not want to take any chances,_” the soldier explained. “_If one gets loose again, use that as a last resort. After all, we know how upset Ozerov would be if anyone else put a scratch on his prize Americans._”

The rest of the soldiers in the room started laughing as Billy and Steve held identical unimpressed expressions. Steve raised his eyebrows as he put the taser in his bag before he found himself being handed several bottles of water and a large box of packed snacks.

“_There will be supplies coming over, but this is in case anything is held up,_” the soldier explained. “_Do not eat it all at once, we are expecting to be in that place for at least a month, and if something goes wrong with transporting supplies there, you may find that to be your lifeline._”

Steve tried to repress a grin as he glanced over at Billy. By the barely concealed smile on his face as he packed the food and water in his bag, he knew that Billy was thinking of the stockpile of tins that they’d left behind in the Upside Down version of Steve’s kitchen.

The door to the armoury swung open and Volkov walked in, looking far too full of his own self-importance for Steve’s liking.

“_Everyone, listen,_” Volkov barked to the room. “_Today we embark on the most important mission that the Kamchatka Operation has ever authorised. Today we find our way to America. Our squadron’s task is to keep our American heroes alive. We supervise them beyond the Gate. We get them to America safely. That is our first priority. We assist with the mission where we can so long as it does not compromise that primary directive. If they die, you die. If they disappear, you die. Your lives are tied to theirs, and I expect you all to give your lives for them. Have I made myself clear?_”

A chorus of acknowledgements in Russian sent the soldiers in the room saluting.

“_Good,_” Volkov barked. “_Move out._”

The order sent the soldiers marching out of the armoury. Steve and Billy found themselves swept up in the activity, grabbing their stocked backpacks and following the rest of the soldiers into the hangar.

The Gate glowed above them, huge, red, and enormous. Steve looked at it with a certain amount of trepidation, watching as cars started driving around the hangar. As he watched, one of the jets that had occupied the hangar started to taxi around and towards the Gate. Steve couldn’t help but be impressed as, with a skilful amount of manoeuvring, the plane taxied around the machine still holding the Gate open and into the red abyss.

“_Into the car,_” Volkov barked, pointing at a four by four with an open back.

The soldiers started to pile into the back, Steve and Billy following as they sat hunched on hard, uncomfortable benches. Evidently the Russians were not quite as invested in seatbelts as Steve and Billy had hoped.

“_Masks on,_” Volkov barked as the car started driving towards the Gate.

As one, the soldiers in the car pulled their masks up over their noses and mouths. Billy and Steve copied them a second later. The Gate was getting closer – all Steve could see was bright red –

Steve closed his eyes as the sensation of pushing through a strange membrane passed over him. He peeled his eyes open and felt his breath hitch slightly as he stared at the hangar, familiar white flakes dancing through the air, nightmarish black vines creeping up the walls, a lack of light beyond the Gate that took his eyes a second to adjust to. He glanced over at Billy who looked equally uncomfortable by the return to Hell.

It was not a long drive by any stretch of the imagination. The hangar was open in the Upside Down, the huge corrugated doors that Steve had never seen open now raised, opening up into the horrific nightmare of the Upside Down.

The road had mostly been cleared of vines, whether by the Mind Flayer retreating them to allow for more efficient passage or by the Russians simply hacking them away, Steve couldn’t tell. He was grateful though – it made the drive much smoother as they swept down a sweeping ramp towards a desolate plain below.

With no real-world context, Steve couldn’t tell if the rocky flat was natural or if it had been cleared. It was enormous, set amidst untraversable cliffs, the only path down being the road they were driving on carved into the rock. The only feature in the basin was the strip of asphalt, long enough to be seen from miles away. It was an enormous runway, with the jets manoeuvring awkwardly down the long road with only the gentlest of curves set in it, the gradient down to the flat the most steadily controlled incline that Steve had ever encountered. As the car followed the road down, Steve watched a large cargo plane take off that he was _sure _must have been built there, because even the hangar couldn’t have housed such a big plane.

Billy and Steve found themselves led onto one of the smaller jets with Volkov and the rest of the soldiers they had seen in the armoury. The seats were entirely functional – hard benches set into the sides with harnesses fitted straight into a netting that covered the walls.

Steve glanced over at Billy, watching as he pulled the jacket tighter around his shoulders.

“Is it just me, or is it a lot colder here than I remember it?” Billy breathed.

Steve gave him a small, wry smile as Billy shivered. The engines around them roared into life. Steve checked the harness that seemed to function as a safety precaution in place of a seatbelt as he leant back into the netting, closing his eyes as he felt the plane shoot into the sky.

-:-

Steve lost track of time.

He wasn’t sure quite when he’d ended up drifting off, but the monotony of having nothing to look at and the natural conversation skills of the Russians decidedly lacking, he must have done. He jerked awake at a particularly jarring bump of turbulence before realising that the plane was coming in to land.

Steve couldn’t help but admire the pilot’s extraordinary ability to land the plane incredibly smoothly, the wheels hitting the runway effortlessly. The plane door opened, and Steve and Billy were led off the plane to find themselves standing in an airstrip they’d never seen before. Steve wondered if it had been built in the Upside Down specially for the Russians to use, transporting soldiers and cargo to and from Russia.

“_Move!_” Volkov barked.

A car was waiting for them. They walked away from the plane, Billy reeling around in surprise as the plane took off as soon as they were clear of it. Steve reasoned that the plane probably had several shuttle runs to make, shipping a healthy chunk of the Russian Army to Hawkins. Once again, the car waiting for them had an open back, almost identical to the one they’d driven to the plane at in Russia.

The car started weaving its way down the track that had been carved into the ground. Once again, the vines seemed to have spared the specific path that the car was taking, either through control or relentless pruning.

Steve felt a twist in his stomach as the landscape started to become more and more familiar. The first time he recognised where he was, he felt his heart jump as they passed an old farm – the name on the distorted, vine-covered letterbox read _‘Hess_’. From there, he started to get his bearings as the car made its way through East Hawkins and out towards –

He recognised the road before Billy did. It made sense, given that Billy had never been there before, but as they drove further and further along the road, he started to get glimpses of a high fence, barbed wire coiled with vines at the top.

The car pulled up to a large gate that stood open. It seemed for the most part to have been broken open by vines. The car pulled up in the parking lot next to several others and Steve found his heart sink as he stared up at the horrific, nightmarish version of Hawkins Lab.

It did not need vines covering it or white flakes drifting through the never-ending night to make it look sinister.

“_Come on,_” Volkov barked.

They were met at the door by a soldier who looked distinctly impatient.

“_Comrade General Ozerov wants to see the Americans,_” he said by way of greeting. “_I am under orders to take them to him._”

Billy and Steve frowned at each other as Volkov nodded at them, dismissing them. The soldier huffed before leading them inside, Billy and Steve exchanging a wordless look as trepidation mounted in Steve’s chest.

They were led to a relatively small room that belied the significance of it. Steve’s eyes widened as he took in the vines twisted around the various metal consoles that were set up, the shattered glass panels that blocked the way to a chasm at one end of the room. He _knew _what that room was.

Ozerov stood in front of the shattered glass panels, staring at the concrete wall beyond the chasm. A crack that descended into the depths below stood proudly in the concrete, the only indication of what had once been there.

Steve found himself leaving Billy’s side, almost in a trance. He walked up to stand beside Ozerov, staring at the crack, his eyes wide. Billy watched him, uncertain of what he was looking at, the barest inkling of quite what had Steve so hypnotised.

“This is the place, is it not?” Ozerov breathed. “Where the girl let us in?”

Steve felt his lips part, his breath coming in barest gasps as he stared at the enormous crack that had once been the Gate.

“Yes,” Steve breathed back. “This is it.”

-:-

Christmas gave way to January in a persistent blast of snow that kept covering Hawkins.

School restarted, with whispers following Lucas as he found himself the unwilling topic of conversation after being seen disappearing into a bathroom with Stacey Albright and coming out later with his belt undone. He felt uncomfortable as eyes followed him down the halls and in the cafeteria as he sat with Mike, Dustin and Will. He hunched his shoulders, trying to block out the world.

“I still don’t understand what happened,” Dustin was saying to Mike, who had been decidedly miserable since the dance. “So you just… _realised _you didn’t like El anymore?”

“No, it’s – it’s not _that…_” Mike said. “I still like her, I will probably _always _like her, but… we’ve just-”

He broke off, stabbing at his plate with his fork vehemently. Dustin waited for him to continue, but when he showed no sign of picking up the dangling thread of conversation, he waved at Mike to get his attention. Mike looked up at him, his face strained as he tried to explain it.

“We’ve – we’ve never had a _normal _relationship,” Mike finally managed. “We’ve had… we’ve had a _connection_, yeah, but – it’s never been… _normal._ She’s always been-”

“The badass world-saving superhero?” Dustin supplied.

Mike frowned slightly but conceded the point. “…Yeah.”

“So you… _don’t_ want to be with her… because she’s got _superpowers?_” Dustin tried to summarise.

“No – _no! _No, that’s not it – that’s not it at all!” Mike snapped.

“Then what _is _it, Mike?” Dustin finally rolled his eyes at him. “Because right now I have no idea what your problem with her is, and I’m really tired of listening to you being miserable about it.”

“It’s – it’s hard to explain,” Mike said. “It’s like… we’ve never spent any _normal _time together – you know, doing _normal _things. Ever since we found her in the woods, she’s been this – this _thing – _this… _presence…_ And even when I thought she was _gone, _I was – I was calling her every night, _hoping _she’d answer. And then she came _back_, and we started seeing each other – a – a _lot_, actually…”

Will and Dustin gave an amused snort.

“…And then – and then the _summer _happened,” Mike continued. “And all of a sudden, everything _changed_. She started spending time with _Max,_ and I – I was _okay _with it at first-”

The other three looked at each other sceptically, Will fighting back barely restrained laughter.

“-And then… after Starcourt_,_ they… they _kept _spending time together. And it started meaning that she _didn’t _spend any time with me. And… then I found out _why…_ and I wasn’t – I wasn’t _okay _with that,” Mike sighed. “It’s – it’s like you said, Dustin, it put us all in danger. And I was – I was _angry._ And I didn’t _want _to be angry with her, so I – I gave her some space. I didn’t _want _her to be that massive part of my life right then, and _now…_ at the dance, I realised that… that I _could _have her be a part of my life like that, but I didn’t… I didn’t _need _her to be that part of my life like I did back then.”

Dustin looked at Mike like he was an idiot, before sighing, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Will frowned at Mike, a confused look on his face.

“That doesn’t seem like a reason _not _to be with someone…” Will said slowly.

“Well, it doesn’t feel the _same, _being with her,” Mike snapped. “Can we – can we stop _talking _about this?”

Dustin shrugged. “Sure,” he sighed. “We _could _talk about how Lucas scored _Stacey Albright _at the-”

“For _fuck’s _sake, I didn’t _score _anything!” Lucas snapped with far more force than any of the others were expecting. Dustin looked surprised, straightening up looking ever so slightly defensive.

“Sorry, man, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Dustin said. “If anything, I was impressed you hooked up with her, if you guys are becoming a thing-”

“We’re _not _becoming a _thing,_ okay?” Lucas snapped. “We’re not a couple, we’re not hooking up… nothing _happened, _alright?”

Dustin looked confused, frowning at Lucas’ reaction. “Okay,” he said, turning back to his lunch. “Nothing happened. Got it.”

Lucas turned back to his own lunch, trying to ignore the way that the other three were exchanging confused, uncomfortable looks.

“Lucas, are… are you _okay?_” Will asked. “Do you want to _talk _about it?”

“Nope,” Lucas snapped, shutting down the conversation. “Nothing to talk about. Nothing happened.”

He was aware of the fact that this was not going to go away, but the mention of Stacey Albright brought back vivid memories of her in the bathroom… _the way that she’d pushed him up against the wall… the feel of her hands fiddling with his belt… the way that when she’d _finally _backed off, she’d done so with a scornful look because the only possible reason that he couldn’t want anything to happen was Max Mayfield… And maybe she was right, but – but – he hadn’t wanted it – he hadn’t wanted it – and nothing had happened…_

_The touch of Stacey’s hand on his cheek burning like a brand…_

_Nothing had happened._

Fortunately, Will seemed to get the message. “Okay,” he said softly, backing off. “Nothing happened.”

-:-

The next task Billy and Steve had was to assemble the machine.

The room in Hawkins Lab was cleared out. The shattered glass panels were stripped away. The electronic consoles were ripped out. Billy and Steve were tasked with creating a map of Hawkins Lab to try and create enough space for the machine. That involved mapping out the floors above the room, seeing what could be ripped out in order to create enough space to assemble the machine.

The scale of the problem they faced was revealed when the machine started to arrive at Hawkins Lab in pieces. The electromagnet that Steve recognised as the one he’d been building with Billy seemed to take up most of the space in the room. Steve had the vaguest memories of the machine that the Russians had built in Starcourt, and he couldn’t help but be impressed by the efficient method that they’d had come up with to recreate the machine in the Upside Down.

Once they’d created the map for the Russians, Ozerov had delegated a construction specialist to supervise the demolition. He surveyed the load-bearing walls and ultimately settled on the fact that the best way to proceed would be to essentially gut the building, leaving only a shell.

Billy was in his element when the demolition process began. Steve would have questioned the wisdom of equipping Billy with a large sledgehammer and asking him to destroy a building, particularly when he was grinning _quite _that much as the walls came tumbling down, but he couldn’t help but be caught up in his enthusiasm. They had so little to smile about, and the childish glee Billy found in taking a sledgehammer to a wall and watching it crack into pieces under his strength did send a wave of affection through Steve.

It took a while for the various components of the machine to arrive. The assembly operation was going to be long, but the Russians had decided to maximise the use of the time that they had, sending different people to assemble the smaller components into larger components, while some of the others began constructing the framework. They assembled what they could as and when it arrived, but the largest components were going to prove the most challenging to assemble.

Billy raised an important question one day as they worked with the Russians that had become their shadow, following the new blueprints that they’d been handed to help assemble some of the smaller parts of the machine.

“How the hell are they going to _power_ this?” Billy hissed at Steve, sticking to English for a fraction more privacy. “This place doesn’t seem like it’s hooked up to the power grid.”

Steve shrugged, flicking through the blueprints. He’d been wondering something similar himself, fairly certain that the first machine in Starcourt had been responsible for the blackout that had affected the whole of Hawkins back in July.

“I mean, are they building a _power plant _or something somewhere nearby? Starting up a generator? Is that – that _thing _going to conjure up a bolt of lightning to fire it up?”

Steve repressed a snort at that. “What the _fuck_, Billy?” he said despairingly. “It’s not – it’s not _Thor._”

Billy raised an eyebrow at him, looking at Steve like he’d grown an extra head. “Did you _seriously_ just reference a comic book?”

Steve flicked through the blueprints, determinedly avoiding Billy’s eye. “He’s not _just _a comic book character,” he said defensively. “He’s also a figure in Greek mythology or something.”

It was Billy’s turn to snort. “Okay, two things: he’s actually a figure in _Norse _mythology, not _Greek_, and there is _no way_ you paid attention in class enough to reference _any _kind of mythology.”

“Okay, okay,” Steve began defensively. “My _point _is the Mind Flayer isn’t able to summon a bolt of lightning. It’s not a – it’s not a god or a superhero or something.”

“Then how the hell are they going to _power _this thing?” Billy asked.

“You do not need to know,” Volkov’s voice cut through their conversation, surprising them both as they wheeled around to see him standing, looking at them with an unimpressed expression. It had slipped both their minds that he could also speak English. “But rest assured, Americans. The Red Army has not been idle.”

-:-

Despite a complete lack of any kind of timekeeping device, the Russians established some sense of routine that gave Steve and Billy a little more sense of the passage of time than they’d had the last time they were in the Upside Down.

They were evidently still not trusted to be left without a guard, so they found themselves locked in one of the few rooms that hadn’t been broken away to make room for the machine when they weren’t needed. They might have taken offence, but Steve and Billy relished the privacy it gave them, finding it far easier to relax with each other despite the fact that they seemed to be living in a broom closet.

There wasn’t room for them both to stretch out, so Billy often found himself curled up on Steve’s lap while Steve spent his nights leaning against the wall. Steve still wasn’t sleeping, which had Billy worried, but he found it extremely hard to bring up when Steve was gently running his hands through Billy’s hair.

“Your hair’s getting longer,” Steve commented. “It actually looks _decent_ now.”

Billy had to concede that it was a look that suited him. Despite the fact that it could probably do with tidying up, it now sat short against his head, the beginnings of the curls starting to show again. There was one lock just above his forehead that had been left a fraction longer in the butchering of his mullet – though ‘mane’ might have been a more accurate description at the time of the haircut. The longer lock kept falling down over his forehead and was starting to get to the point where it was tickling the space between his eyebrows, but Steve just pushed it back gently. Billy hummed slightly, his eyes drifting closed.

“I suppose we should probably think about what we’re going to do,” Steve said. “Now that we know a bit more about what we’re up against.”

“What’s there to think about?” Billy protested. “The plan’s as solid as it’s ever going to be. We swap the cables on the electromagnet, run through the Gate and let the thing go boom.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I was _talking _about the contingency plan,” Steve pointed out. “In case our suicide mission does, in fact, turn out to be a suicide mission.”

Billy hummed, finding it extremely hard to concentrate on anything beyond the feeling of Steve gently stroking his head. He’d never really been one for intimate moments of affection, but he had to admit that this made him feel extremely comfortable in spite of the situation.

“I think we should work out how we get a message to the others before we blow up the Gate,” Steve said, his tone brisk. “We stand a hell of a lot more chance of getting a message to them than we do of blowing the Gate up.”

The hand stopped stroking through Billy’s hair. Billy frowned at Steve, annoyed.

“How the fuck are we meant to get a message to them?” Billy said, not moving his head from Steve’s lap and holding the annoyed glare in a hope that Steve would get the message.

“Well,” Steve said. “I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s dangerous.”

Steve smacked his forehead without looking at him. Any protests Billy may have had were immediately cut off by the hand running through his hair again.

“When Mrs Byers and Hopper went into the Upside Down to get Will Byers back,” Steve explained, “they came to the Byers’ house. It was at the same time that Nancy, Jonathan and I fought the Demogorgon a couple of years ago. When Mrs Byers was in the Upside Down version of her house, the lights started to come on. And that’s not all. Whenever the Mind Flayer or the Demogorgon were close, the lights started flashing.”

“So you’re saying that we can make lights in our world come on from here?”

“If there’s a Gate open close enough, yes,” Steve explained. “Will Byers used lights to communicate with his mom when the first Gate opened and he was trapped. It was why she was so adamant that he was alive, even though everyone thought she was crazy.”

“Okay,” Billy said. “So we find someone and make their lights flash around them.”

“Someone who _knows,_” Steve pointed out. “Most people would think that they need to call an electrician. The _problem_ comes with convincing the people who _do _know that they should listen. If we make Nancy or Jonathan’s lights flash or something, then _sure, _they might know that the Gate’s open, but they’re not going to listen if we try and tell them about the Russians, and they’re going to go up against the Mind Flayer and the Russians totally shorthanded.”

“Why wouldn’t they listen?”

“Well, they’re not going to believe it’s us,” Steve pointed out. “I don’t know if you noticed, but everyone back home thinks we’re dead.”

“Not everyone,” Billy remarked softly. “At least, not everyone back home thinks _I’m _dead.”

Steve frowned down at Billy. Billy looked up at him, a touch of melancholy in his eyes.

“Have I ever told you how I ended up here?” Billy asked.

Steve shook his head.

“Well,” Billy said. “Back when I was Flayed, Max and the kids set a trap for me. I don’t know what they were hoping to achieve, but – but that Eleven girl, she – she opened a Gate and sent me through it.”

Steve’s eyes fell shut at that.

“I think you mentioned,” Steve said softly. “Back at the memorial. I didn’t know what you were on about, but you said something about someone sending you here.”

Billy sighed. “Yeah.”

“I know what they were doing, though,” Steve said. “If the Gate had closed while you were still Flayed and shut you in our dimension, you would have _died._ We had to figure out a way to get the Mind Flayer out of Will before El closed the first Gate. They probably didn’t have time to do the same to you, so they – I don’t know – put you into the Upside Down as a placeholder for a better plan.”

“That’s… _messed up,_” Billy said.

Steve sighed. “Yeah.”

“Still,” Billy said. “It means that they know _I’m _alive.”

Steve looked at Billy sadly. “Yeah, but they think you’re Flayed,” he pointed out. “They’re going to see any message from you as a trick.”

Billy looked up at Steve with the ghost of a smile on his face. “Max won’t,” he said softly. “If we get a message to _her, _she’ll listen.”

Steve gave Billy a slightly incredulous look. “You sure about that?”

Billy’s smile grew. “As sure as I’ll ever be.”

Steve returned the smile. “Okay, so you go and make lights happen with Max,” he said. “We just need to work out a way to give you enough time to get to her after the Gate opens.”

Billy’s head lolled on Steve’s lap as he looked at him like an idiot.

“Steve, we’re _looking _at the answer.”

Steve frowned.

“Steve,” Billy explained slowly. “The Russians opened up a Gate so that they could weaponize this place to take out America.”

“…Yeah, _and?_”

Billy rolled his eyes. “Is it such a stretch to think that _our _government was doing the same?”

-:-

Paul hung up the phone, feeling decidedly frustrated. He’d spent most of the first few weeks of the year on the phone with the Police Commissioner, discussing the expansion of the Hawkins Police Department. It was proving to be far more trouble than Paul had anticipated – he’d expected an increase in recruits was going to lead to an increase in equipment required for it, but now the Commissioner was dragging his feet over some snag involving property prices in the area for anyone moving to Hawkins.

That and, of course, the fact that Paul had hinted not-so-subtly that he found Hopper’s leadership to be decidedly lacking, and whether it might be time to assign a new Chief of Police.

Paul had the grounds for such a request, even without resorting to Hopper’s history of substance abuse. In a moment of pettiness, he’d asked for a full list of cold cases that Hopper hadn’t deemed worth his time which was something Paul was not above utilising.

Still, the Commissioner could evidently only handle one big change to the Hawkins Police Department at once, because any time Paul brought up the subject of a new Chief of Police, he found the subject changed abruptly. Paul wasn’t overly concerned. He wasn’t about to press the subject when it suited him far more to blindside Hopper with the new development.

After all, he still needed to find out what exactly Hopper and the Department of Energy were hiding.

Linda had largely taken over that particular avenue. They had decided together that the public archives were going to contain no such evidence of any potential operations of the Department of Energy. Instead, Linda was looking into the background of Doctor Owens.

Paul, meanwhile, was dreading his next meeting. Hopper had finally learnt what a secretary was and had scheduled a meeting to discuss the upcoming changes and expansions to his Department which Paul had failed to find an excuse to get out of. He’d deliberately avoided having any contact with Hopper since he’d realised that Starcourt was a lot less of an accident than Hopper had told him, fearful of exactly what reaction it would stir in him.

His secretary knocked on his door to announce Hopper’s arrival. The name sent a bolt of unwelcome emotion through him, tensing his back as he straightened in his chair. Nevertheless, he gave a small nod to his secretary wordlessly, and a moment later, Hopper was walking into the room.

The sight of Hopper in his office sent a roar of anger and hatred rearing up inside him like a monster. He fought to keep his expression under control, feeling the slight twitch between his eyebrows, his eyes widening. His heart started beating harder, a familiar sick feeling settling in his stomach.

“Chief Hopper,” Paul said in a voice of forced calm.

Hopper didn’t immediately respond, looking around the room as he sat down.

“You want to tell me what this is all about?” Hopper finally asked, not looking at Paul until the last word.

“What _what _is all about?” Paul asked, trying to minimise the bite in his voice.

Hopper sighed, picking up the small triangular plaque on the desk and fiddling with it. “The expansion of the Hawkins PD?”

Paul reached across the table and snatched the plaque away from Hopper and put it back down on his desk.

“We’ve been over this, Chief Hopper,” he said, settling back into his seat and fixing Hopper with a glare. “Too much bad has come out of the status quo. If we allow things to continue as they are, who can say how many more people are going to be affected?”

Hopper leant back in his chair, looking out the window. “I’m telling you, this isn’t the answer.”

“With all due respect, Chief Hopper, what qualifies _you _to give me an answer?”

“I’ve run this town for six years-”

“Yes,” Paul said, getting to his feet. “You _have._ And in that time, what has happened? How many families have found themselves torn apart by _loss_ and _tragedy?_ How can you _look me in the eye_ and ask me for a license to continue as you have been after that?”

“This is a waste of money,” Hopper said. “There are better ways to help the Department-”

“That is not your call to make,” Paul kept his tone measured, hoping to disguise the slight shake in his breath as the rage in his chest roared.

Hopper got to his feet and faced off against Paul. Blue eyes met grey as the air felt charged, almost electric.

“None of this is going to bring your son back,” Hopper said softly.

“No,” Paul breathed. “It won’t. But there’s a chance it will stop any other family from going through the same pain. There’s a chance it will get him justice.”

Hopper’s eyes fell closed. “You don’t want _justice, _Paul. If you _did,_ we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Paul couldn’t disguise the slight tremor in his voice as his face settled into a hardened mask of pure hate.

“You’re wrong, Chief Hopper,” Paul said quietly, his voice low and dangerous. “The one thing I want more than _anything _is justice. I’m just not convinced I’ve had it yet.”

-:-

Steve stood next to Billy, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight in front of him.

The machine was finished.

He had expected a little more gravitas to the moment, a sense of occasion – if such sense of occasion could be manufactured in the Upside Down. Instead, what he got was standing on a balcony, waiting for Ozerov to come and turn it on.

They had discovered the answer to the power source. The Russians had spent most of the time since the Gate had been opened building an oil power plant from scratch nearby, and had spent months bringing tankers of oil to the Upside Down. They had wired up the power plant to the machine in a way that could not possibly be up to code.

The machine itself stood proud in the centre of the ruined lab. Set several feet back from the edge of the chasm that led down to the tunnels Steve and Billy had become so familiar with, the machine looked impressive, huge, and more terrifying than anything Steve had seen.

_This was it._

The footsteps clicked off the stone, announcing Ozerov’s imminent arrival. He was followed by two men wearing biohazard suits – evidently, the scientists were treated with more care than the soldiers, who simply had facemasks.

One of them was carrying a metal briefcase. Steve’s heart leapt into his throat as he saw them set the case down on one of the only other pieces of furniture in the vicinity – a metal table with two podiums identical to the ones Steve had seen underneath Starcourt. The case opened to reveal two small keys that caught what little light there was in the room.

The two scientists in their biohazard suits each took a key and walked up to the podiums. They looked at Ozerov. Steve knew that they were as nervous as anyone else – there was no room for error. There was no observation deck to keep them safe this time – it either worked or it didn’t. The Mind Flayer had not been willing to wait long enough to build such a precaution. And if, God forbid, it didn’t work, the Mind Flayer’s rage upon the survivors would be unparalleled.

Ozerov nodded at the scientists, who looked at each other as they turned the keys.

A bright light surged from the core of the machine. The various components started to whir into life. Steve flinched away from the light slightly. Billy’s hand found his next to him, his fingers interlocking with Steve’s as Steve gripped tighter. The noise was deafening.

A highly concentrated beam of light shot out of the far end of the machine towards the crack. It hit the crevice in the wall, a glowing red light starting to work its way up the fracture.

Suddenly, there was an earth-shattering crack as the concrete split away again, chunks of concrete falling away as the Gate opened. He could feel a breeze blast through the room, the pressure equalising as Steve chanced a glance at Ozerov. Ozerov’s eyes were wide, a strange smile on his face. His lips were parted, his mouth open in awe. Steve looked at Billy, illuminated by the red Gate, and felt his heart pounding in his chest.

Ozerov turned towards them as he crossed the short distance between them.

“Are you ready to prove your worth to me?” Ozerov breathed.

Billy gave a small nod. He gave Steve’s hand a reassuring squeeze as he looked over at him before unlacing his fingers.

Steve steeled himself.

“Wait…” Steve said. “There’s… There’s something you should know.”

Ozerov’s barely contained exhilaration suddenly fell from his face as he looked at Steve. “What?”

Steve felt his heart pounding in his chest as he looked at the Gate. He was _so close _to going home… to seeing Dustin, and Robin, and Nancy and Jonathan, and his parents, and everyone else again – and _God, did he want to…_

But he had to fix this. Even if it cost him his chance at seeing them all again.

“There’s… there’s something our government was doing,” Steve said. “I don’t know what they were working on, but I think it was some kind of… some kind of _weapon-_”

Steve suddenly felt himself being slammed against the wall, a hand tight around his neck. He looked down at Ozerov, his eyes wide as he struggled to drag air into his lungs.

“_Why _didn’t you mention this _before?_” Ozerov snarled.

Steve choked, seeing Billy’s eyes wide behind Ozerov’s back as he watched what was happening. Steve prayed that Billy would stick to the plan, to not interfere. They’d expected Ozerov to get angry, but they had to let him, because Steve would not risk Billy’s life to save his own.

“I didn’t think it was important,” Steve gasped out as Ozerov loosened his grip to let him speak. “I didn’t know what you were planning. I only realised it could still be a problem now…”

Ozerov let out a disgusting noise as he threw Steve away towards Billy. Steve staggered over as Billy caught him around the chest, helping ease him upright as Steve swallowed through his abused throat.

“I – I know where it is,” Steve gasped hoarsely. “They hid it, but – I know where it is. We – we can destroy it. But we’ve – we’ve got to do it before the US Government realises the Gate is open again. Otherwise they might be able to activate it.”

Ozerov glared at Steve before turning to one of the scientists.

“_Close the Gate,_” Ozerov barked in Russian.

The scientist looked confused in his suit.

“_What?_” he stammered. “_Comrade General, we _can’t! _If we close the Gate now, it will destroy the machine!_”

Ozerov swore under his breath.

“It’s – it’s not _far,_” Steve stammered. “It’s – it’s maybe an hour’s walk away. I can take you there. You can see for yourself. We can destroy it.”

Ozerov looked at Steve with barely concealed rage in his eyes. His head suddenly snapped up.

“_Volkov!_” Ozerov barked, summoning the Lieutenant to him. “_Take your men with Butterscotch. Take the other one, too. Go and see this weapon for yourself. If Butterscotch tries anything, shoot his friend._”

-:-

Steve felt a pang of familiarity as he slipped through the deserted streets of Hawkins. Even this – the Upside Down’s twisted version of it – sent jolts of nostalgia through him after however many months he’d spent in Russia. They passed Melvald’s and Steve’s gut twisted like a knife.

“_How much farther?_” Volkov hissed in Russian.

“_Not far,_” Steve replied. “_It is on the edge of Hawkins._”

Volkov frowned at him. “_Where exactly _is _the edge of Hawkins?_”

“_This way._”

The other five soldiers looked distinctly unimpressed by Steve’s directions, but Steve had no intention of taking them to the edge of Hawkins. The plan wasn’t quite as extravagant as that.

They approached the edge of Cherry Lane, and Steve couldn’t help but glance at Billy. He saw, mirrored in his face, the same feeling of nostalgic pain that Steve himself felt. Billy stared down the street, hesitating for a moment, his gaze seeming to surpass a thousand miles.

_Not here. Just a bit further._

An encyclopaedic knowledge of Hawkins borne out of spending months driving people at least four years younger than him around to various activities told Steve that there was a crossroads up ahead. Steve reached it before drawing to a sudden stop.

He looked around vacantly in a circle, his eyes not meeting with any of the Russians’ gazes that were locked onto him. His eyes found Billy’s at the back of the group next to Volkov himself, and Steve’s eyes froze on him for a moment.

Billy gave the smallest imperceptible nod as Volkov stared at Steve, looking frustrated.

“_What is going-”_

Billy struck first. His pistol swung up and smacked Volkov on the side of the head. The soldiers were taken by surprise as Volkov staggered sideways. They raised their guns, aiming them at Billy –

Steve fired off two rounds from behind them. The bullets smacked into their backs, sinking into their flesh. Steve watched with a sickened horror, noticing the difference between the bright paint that splattered over the uniform in the training exercise and the way the blood dribbled down. There was no explosion of red, what little red there was looked darker, seeping into and staining the uniforms rather than splattering all over it.

Billy fired off two more rounds, catching two more soldiers in the neck and chest as the fifth one turned back to Steve, weapon raised. Steve recovered from his moment of morbid fascination as he saw the gun trained on him, survival instinct rather than any training raising the gun to the soldier’s head.

He watched the head explode as the corpse fell to the floor, a sick feeling intensifying in his stomach. He froze for a split second, Billy looking over at him cautiously –

A jolt of movement behind Billy sparked life into Steve again –

“_Billy!_” Steve yelled as Volkov collided with him –

Billy crashed to the floor, his gun slipping out of his hands and across the asphalt. Volkov raised the pistol still in his hand and aimed it at Billy. Billy smacked the hand to one side with his right hand, catching it in his left and twisting until the gun came loose. The weapon clattered to the ground and Steve charged at Volkov, pinning his arms just long enough for Billy to regain his footing.

Billy swung a fist into Volkov’s head, catching it in the same bloody place that the barrel of his gun had caught a moment earlier. Volkov was sent crashing to the ground, unmoving. Billy bent down and grabbed Volkov’s gun, aiming it at the unconscious man’s back –

“Billy, _no!_” Steve yelled, his hand pushing the gun down.

“Steve-”

“He’s down,” Steve said softly. “He’s not going anywhere. We don’t have to kill him.”

“He’d kill _us,_” Billy spat vehemently.

Steve slipped his hand further up the gun, his fingertips brushing against Billy’s skin.

“We don’t have to be like them, Billy,” Steve breathed. “You don’t have to be the monster they want us to be. You don’t have to be the monster _the Mind Flayer _made you be.”

The words caught in Billy’s chest, and he felt a wave of grief and shame wash over him. He saw Heather Holloway in his mind’s eye, he saw her parents, he saw the journalist, and all the others.

“You can be _more _than that, Billy,” Steve breathed. “You can be the wonderful, brilliant _person_ I know.”

Billy felt the gun fall back to his side as he looked down at Volkov lying on the ground.

“We can’t let him go,” Billy said. “If he wakes up, he’ll warn the others.”

Steve smiled. “I’ll take care of it,” he breathed. “Go talk to Max.”

The mention of her name sent a pang of emotion shooting through him, twisting in his heart. He leant forwards and pressed a kiss against Steve’s lips for less than a second before sprinting back down the street.

He was at his house in minutes, but it could have been hours. He burst into the living room, his breath catching in his throat as he looked around the old living room. He never would have thought that he’d want to see it again, but even the old couch, covered in vines, made Billy’s chest tighten.

He couldn’t afford to hang around. He burst into Max’s room, his heart pounding as he suddenly considered the possibility that maybe Max was out. Maybe it was the middle of the day at home. Maybe, maybe, _maybe_ one of a million scenarios were going to play out where this wasn’t going to work –

He had to try.

Steve had mentioned lights. He walked over to the old table lamp, covered in vines as it was. He had to find a way to get her attention.

He tried pressing the switch.

Nothing happened.

_No, _Billy thought. _Nothing happened _here. _There was a possibility that something could be happening on the other side of the Gate._

He tried again. He tried for something distinctive. Something that would get her attention. Something more than just flickering, or a bulb blowing…

-:-

The clock in Max’s bedroom read 05:42 when she was woken up by her bedside light flashing on and off repeatedly. She stirred for a moment before sitting bolt upright, her heart pounding in her chest as she stared at the flickering light.

As she watched, though, she noticed something different. This wasn’t the random flickering of the light. There was a pattern to it. Three short flashes, three long, and then three short before a pause, where it would start up again.

_An SOS._

Her heart leapt into her throat as she gasped, emotion overwhelming her as she realised – she _realised _–

She got out of bed and looked at the lamp, touching the lampshade so delicately as though it might break.

“Billy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAHHHHH I'M SO EXCITED!!!
> 
> So yes, there were time jumps in this chapter. Many, MANY time jumps. They would not have been able to assemble a massive laser in the Upside Down over the course of a few days. That said, building a laser was extremely boring and featured very little character moments for our dear boys, so I just... kind of... rattled through it...
> 
> In other news, guess whose calendar has just emptied thanks to COVID-19? (Not that I've come down with it, I just work in the entertainment industry and it's a great time to try and get the general public gathered together in one room in exchange for money...) The plus side is I have lots of time to write!


	35. Part 3 Chapter 14: American Heroes

Billy heard Max’s voice echo around the room, his name sounding so desperate in her voice, and he felt his heart crack. Tears sprang into his eyes as he looked around the room, trying to work out where the voice was coming from.

_“Billy… is that you?”_

He pressed his eyes closed, feeling the tears slip down his cheeks at the sound of her voice.

“Yes,” he breathed, his voice shaking. “Yeah, shitbird, it’s me…”

_“Billy… if that’s you, blink once for yes, twice for no._”

Billy’s heart clenched as he flicked the light once.

_“Billy!” _Max sounded like she was crying as she all but screamed his name. _“Oh my God, Billy, I can’t believe it’s you!”_

Billy looked at the lamp as he felt his own voice shake. “Neither can I…” he breathed.

_“Are you okay?”_

He flicked the lamp once. He heard her barely repress a sob.

_“Are you hurt? Is that thing still in you?”_

Billy couldn’t help but let out a shaky laugh at that. It was a stupid question, because if that thing _was _still in him, he’d obviously give the same answer, but he flicked the lamp twice. She seemed to realise that it was a stupid question at his answer, because he heard her give a shaky laugh.

_“Well, _good,_” _she said hesitantly. _“Because… if it wasn’t, I’d find a way to burn it out of you.”_

That had Billy giving a small laugh as he sat down on the bed, his hand still on the switch. “Didn’t know you _cared _so much, Maxine,” he breathed.

He suddenly remembered Steve, dealing with the Russians so that he could have this precious moment. The reason _why _they’d gone to such lengths so that he could talk to Max came home to him with a crash. He had to warn her about what was coming. He frantically started flicking the lamp on and off in the same SOS pattern.

_“What is it, Billy, what’s wrong?”_

He paused for a moment, trying to see if he knew any Morse Code beyond the basic SOS. When he drew a blank, he just started up the SOS again.

_“Billy, what’s wrong? How can I help you? Tell me how to help you!”_

And that was the most frustrating thing, because he _couldn’t _tell her anything. He wanted to tell her about the Russians, and the Gates, and what they were planning, and _Steve,_ but he was limited to flashes.

_“Is it the Gate?”_ she suddenly asked, her breath hitching. _“Billy, is there another Gate?”_

Billy paused, trying to work out the best way to respond. He could say ‘yes,’ but Steve had made an extremely valid point when he’d said that they needed to make the _scale _of what they were up against clear. He paused, before it came to him.

He flicked the switch three times in quick succession, hoping that it would make the meaning clear.

_“S?”_ Max’s voice sounded confused. _“Wait – oh my God – Billy, are there _Gates?_”_

Billy felt a wave of emotion surge through him as he flicked the switch once.

_“Shit…”_ Max breathed. _“Billy, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to get you out of there. We can stop this. Just – just hang on!”_

Billy got to his feet, his fingers brushing the lampshade as he fought back an unexpected sob. He knew that the chances of him seeing her again were next to nothing, but his heart clenched at the determination in her voice.

“Goodbye, Max,” he breathed. He turned on his heel and walked out of the room slowly. He took in every detail of the house as he walked through it one last time, the house that he’d hated so much, the house that contained the last member of his family that he gave a damn about. He angrily wiped the tears away as he slipped back onto the road.

-:-

Steve looked up to see Billy coming down the road. He’d been lucky; Volkov’s backpack had had some plastic zip ties in it – presumably in the event of Steve and Billy falling out of line – and Steve had fastened his hands behind his back. He was just in the process of lacing the second zip tie through the first as he bent Volkov’s legs up behind him, tying his ankles together so he was left on his stomach with no way to move.

The sight of Billy’s face had Steve frozen, his gut twisting painfully.

“You okay?” he asked carefully.

Billy nodded. “Yeah.”

Steve understood – _God, _he understood. “Do you need to talk about-”

“No,” Billy cut him off vehemently. “Let’s just… let’s just get out of here.”

Steve nodded in understanding. “Well, the easy part’s done,” Steve said, looking down at the five dead soldiers and Volkov, still unconscious and tied up. “Now for the hard part.”

Billy nodded, his eyes still red. “Let’s just hope they’re not expecting us back _too _soon.”

Only the familiarity they’d had in the Upside Down gave them the foresight to go to Merrill’s Farm. They sprinted towards the hole still visible in the centre of the field, with no sign of the enormous many-legged monster that had plagued their nightmares. Luck was evidently on their side.

“Wait,” Steve said, catching his breath as Billy made to jump into the hole. “The Mind Flayer – Ozerov – he _knows _about the tunnels. Do you – do you think they’ll be guarding it?”

Billy snorted. “From _what, _Steve? His army of monsters? The Russians he’s got under his thumb?”

Steve raised his eyebrows at him. “What about from _us?_”

“Steve,” Billy said. “Whatever he’s got down there, he’s going to have at the entrance _and more._ If they think we’ve turned on them, they’re going to be sending out their armies and guarding the lab. This way, they’re not going to be expecting – at least, not as much as they’ll be expecting us to use the front door. _That _was your whole rationale for using the tunnels in the first place. This way takes us right up to the Gate, and, quite frankly, this idea of yours was fucking _genius._”

Steve tilted his head in concession, blushing slightly at the compliment. Billy held out his hand to Steve.

“Ready?” Billy asked, his cocky grin back in place.

Steve grinned back as him as he crouched down and took Billy’s hand. “Ready.”

They jumped into the tunnel together. Immediately surrounded by the damp smell that had become all too familiar, Steve was almost immediately greeted with reminders of the last time he’d been down in the tunnels. The vines on the walls looked scarred, the slimy skin resembling a black version of his burnt leg. He stumbled over what looked to be bones, blackened by the soot around it.

Billy followed his gaze, stepping over to Steve.

“Brings back memories,” he joked to Steve.

Steve looked up at him as he started walking down the tunnel. Billy started picking up speed and Steve broke into a jog to close the gap.

They moved as quickly as they could without compromising on stealth. Billy remained confident that the tunnels would be empty, the Russian Army getting ready to infiltrate Hawkins, but he sympathised with Steve’s concerns so didn’t press the subject.

Steve almost jumped out of his skin the first time a vine moved under his feet. Billy wheeled around, gun pointing at the floor as Steve sprinted away from the vine. They both knew that neither of them was a good enough marksman to hit a writhing vine on the floor, but it was all they had to defend themselves at this point. Not for the first time, Steve missed his bat.

They passed through the Hub without a whisper of trouble. Steve found it completely unsettling how utterly deserted the room was. He was certain that paranoia was playing a part in this, but he had a strange feeling, tingling in the small of his back, that made him wonder if they were being watched.

A soft noise echoed at the end of the tunnel, sending both Steve and Billy’s backs straighter. Guns raised as they both froze, aiming them down the tunnel. Billy silently flicked his eyes sideways towards Steve, who gave him an equally nervous look back.

_They’d come this far._

They wordlessly started walking again, slowing their pace to make sure that their feet didn’t make a sound. Every step they took was deliberate, every movement slow as they watched out for anything moving in among the white flakes that drifted through the air like snow.

Steve’s heart was in his mouth as they glimpsed movement up ahead. They pressed themselves against the wall of the tunnel, peering out towards the opening they could see up ahead, the dim red light illuminating –

“Oh my god,” Steve heard Billy breathe next to him.

The opening was swarming with Demogorgons. They seemed to be waiting, their faces fluttering as every now and again, one of them would scream, their faces opening up into horrifying flowers of teeth. Steve had never seen fully-grown Demogorgons interact with each other before, and by the looks of things, there seemed to be a good reason for this. As Billy and Steve watched, two of them devolved into a screaming match, their faces opening up as they postured against one another.

“We can’t get past that,” Steve breathed.

Billy shook his head. “No,” he breathed back. “We can’t. But we might be able to get _around _it.”

Steve looked at him, confused.

“They’ve drilled right down to the lower levels of the lab,” Billy explained. “I don’t know about you, but I can make that climb. If we can get up to the machine quickly, then we might be able to break it and get through the Gate.”

“Billy, they’ll come after us,” Steve hissed. “Those things will catch us and tear us to pieces! They can scale that wall better than _we _can?”

“Well, what do you suggest, Steve?” Billy glared at him. “Go back and take our chances with the front door?”

They both knew that wasn’t an option. The second they showed up without their guard of honour, they were as good as dead. Steve glanced at the opening, looking at the Gate, so _close_…

His eyes fell down to the opening in front of the Gate. The place that had once been his salvation, once a trap lying in wait for him, and now spelled out either his demise or his future.

Something clicked in his brain.

“I’ve got an idea,” Steve breathed.

“How crazy is it?”

“Certifiable,” Steve replied as he slipped the backpack off his shoulders and started looking for something that he _knew _he’d packed. “But exactly how many of our plans haven’t been?”

Billy gave a soft head tilt in acknowledgement of that point. “What is it?”

Steve’s hands closed around the thin cylinder of plastic. “I think there’s a flamethrower in amongst all… _that_.”

Billy stared at Steve incredulously, piecing together the rest of the plan in seconds as Steve extracted the disposable lighter from his backpack.

“_What?_” Billy’s face was a mask of horror. “No! Steve-”

“I can buy you time,” Steve whispered as he zipped up the bag and slung it back over his shoulders. “Give you a chance to get up there to turn it off.”

“Steve, I won’t let you do this-”

“Billy-”

“_No, _Steve! You know what you said about how you weren’t prepared to watch me die?” Billy glared at Steve, hoping to convey through his eyes how utterly, utterly _horrified_ he was. “Well, it goes both ways!”

“Billy,” Steve breathed, giving him the same look he’d given him the last time they’d been in the Upside Down, when he’d told Billy that he wanted to try and find the Gate in Russia despite the fact that he could barely get out of bed. “We don’t have a choice. It’s either this or give up. I – I _can’t _give up.”

Billy looked at him, saw the last spark of determination ignite into a flame in Steve’s eyes. He knew that there was no way to stop him. He felt himself nod at Steve, his heart twisting in his chest.

“You go through that Gate the _second _I’m by the machine,” Billy breathed. “I _mean _it, Steve, the _second_ I’m there. Don’t wait around for me, I’ll be fine.”

It was an empty lie that they’d gotten so used to telling each other that it carried no real meaning anymore. Steve nodded though, crouching down slightly as he got ready to run.

“Oh, and Steve?” Billy breathed.

Steve looked back at him, a strange look in his eyes.

“Try not to die,” Billy whispered.

Steve nodded, managing a sad smile. “You too,” he said.

Steve took a deep breath, looking at the ground. It was slightly easier to see in the glowing red light, and he had an idea of where the flamethrower would be – presuming it was still there. He felt the lighter beneath his fingers. He tested it, watching as the sparks ignited into a flame. He took another deep breath, and he ran.

The second he burst out of the tunnel, the Demogorgons turned towards him, the terrifying faces opening up in screams. He didn’t have time to focus, his heart pumping adrenaline into every fibre of his body.

A claw swung at his head. Steve ducked, the claw swiping at air where his head had been less than a second earlier. He could see another one charging at him. He changed direction suddenly, barely sparing a glance as the monster collided with another, the two Demogorgons shrieking those soul-wrenching cries as they struggled against one another.

Steve ducked under another claw that seemed to aim straight for his head as he caught sight of Billy slipping out of the tunnel and starting to scale the wall. He felt a wave of relief as the Demogorgons seemed not to have noticed him. The wall itself looked like it was ten feet, maybe twelve at a push. Steve just needed to find the flamethrower – he was close – it was around here somewhere –

Billy tore his attention for a second too long as he found himself flying sideways. He hit the floor with a cry, trying not to feel how bruised the side of his body felt as he skidded across the rough floor towards the Gate. He looked up into the many-petaled face of teeth that opened up and screamed his imminent demise, his heart pounding unnaturally –

He raised his hand instinctively to stop it, the teeth closing around his wrist. He felt the lighter slip from his grasp and land on his chest. His other hand came up to catch it, slipping it into his hand still wrapped around the pistol, aiming the gun up –

The first gunshot was enough to free his hand. He yanked it free, kicking out desperately as he scrambled away. He rolled over, trying to push himself to his feet –

A claw slammed into his shoulder, pressing him into the ground. He swung his injured arm back, catching between the claw as he rolled desperately onto his side. He used his good hand to try and adjust the grip on his gun –

The second claw of the monster slashed his hand away, sending the gun and the lighter to the floor. He desperately reached out – here, in the red glow of the Gate, he knew his end was coming, but he could see Billy, so _close _to the top, the Demogorgons as such completely unaware of his presence.

Steve desperately reached out, trying to find the gun. He was going to die here, in the red glow of the Gate, but if he could by Billy a _few more minutes_, just enough to get up to the machine and do whatever he needed to do before getting through, then Billy could get home. Billy could see Max again.

His fingers found the lighter as his arm started to shake under the weight of the Demogorgon’s claw. He kept that held between his thumb as he kept searching for the gun – it wasn’t ideal, but it was all he had –

His fingers brushed against something metal sticking out of the vines on the floor.

He found his hands closing around something long and cylindrical. It was big – bigger than the pistol he’d dropped. He forced his eyes to focus on it, his heart pounding in his chest as he realised what it was –

He flung the Demogorgon’s claw to one side as he pulled the metal cylinder towards him. The Demogorgon fell sideways, catching its balance as Steve’s hands closed around the achingly familiar shape. Steve kicked the Demogorgon as he struggled to find his feet. His fingers found the lighter still in his hand and he started flicking it, hoping against hope it would work –

A spark shot out, catching the flow of gas. Steve’s fingers closed around the trigger and orange fire filled the space as the flamethrower erupted into life.

Billy’s heart soared as he pulled himself up onto the ledge just as orange light erupted below him. He spared a glance downwards as he watched Steve stagger to his feet. Billy heard the sounds of voices yelling at the sudden realisation that there _was, _in fact, a very serious threat below them. Billy pressed himself against the ground, praying that he wasn’t seen as he caught sight of Ozerov barking orders at soldiers, the room emptying as the soldiers started trying to make their way down there.

Billy hadn’t given Steve _nearly _enough credit for the genius in his plan.

Billy crept along the ledge, staying low and hoping against hope that nobody would notice. As it was, everyone was far more preoccupied about the immediate threat to their pack of monsters to glance at him as he ducked down, pressing himself flat on the floor as boots stormed past him.

Billy was close now – he was less than ten feet away from the machine.

A skeleton guard remained at the machine, clearly wary of possibly this very eventuality. Ozerov remained behind, looking distinctly unsettled, his black eyes darting around the room and towards the Gate. Billy took a certain amount of satisfaction in his discomfort.

Billy felt the gun in his hand. He raised it and aimed it at the nearest soldier, but something held him back from pulling the trigger. After the incident with Volkov, he felt a certain reluctance in shooting two men in cold blood.

_They would shoot him now if they saw him._

_He had a choice._

_He was a killer already._

_He could choose not to be._

Billy looked at the soldier that had chosen to remain behind. He watched him look around, the way the gun in his arms looked slightly too big for him, the way his eyes flitted nervously around the room, the way he looked just as scared of the gun in his hand as he did of the monsters down below that he’d been tasked with protecting.

_Billy had a choice._

_He wasn’t the monster Ozerov had made him._

Billy raised his gun and aimed it at the metal table at the far end of the room. The two podiums stood proud, but Billy had another idea.

He fired a single shot at the table.

The bullet tore through the table and into the concrete. The soldiers and Ozerov wheeled around to face it as Billy sprinted along the ledge. He skidded down beside the electromagnet that he’d spent so many months building. A gunshot sounded – Billy ducked under the machine –

He caught a glimpse of Steve down below, his back to the Gate as the jet of flame held back a semicircle of monsters.

Whatever happened, Billy would see him safe.

“_Steve!_”

He saw Steve’s head look up straight towards the machine.

“Go! Get out of here!”

Steve hesitated for a second as another gunshot echoed out around the machine. Billy couldn’t afford to wait – it was now or never –

Steve seemed to be pushing himself back through the Gate. It would have to be enough.

Billy barely heard the next gunshots over the noise of the machine. They seemed to be congregating around the side of the machine he’d just come from. Billy ducked further under the machine, glimpsing the small gap between the mounts the machine was set on. He could feel the electricity coming off the machine, the heat coming of it in waves as he scrambled underneath to make it to the other side.

One of the soldiers still remained, aiming off a shot at Billy as he crawled out into the space, sweat soaking through his shirt. Billy flinched as the shot sounded, recoiling backwards and pulling his arm away from where the bullet smacked into the concrete. Billy aimed his own gun, firing off two rounds sending the soldier falling backwards.

Billy spun around to face the machine. He saw the electromagnet, hoping against hope that this would work.

He tried not to scream as his hands shrieked their protest as he yanked two hot components out. He dropped them as if burnt, watching the laser sputter.

He had to do it now.

He plugged the cables back in. He didn’t bother to look to see whether it worked. He started running, launching himself into the air over the crack, praying it was enough.

Steve was mostly through the Gate as he saw Billy sail through the air. He wasn’t completely through – he wanted to see Billy make it – he held the flamethrower out, making sure he wasn’t followed –

The beam of light sputtered, and Steve heard a crunch of gears. He looked up, feeling the Gate close around him – he saw the machine’s light die, a flash of _something _catch fire – but it was different – when the Gate had exploded in Starcourt, there hadn’t been _fire,_ there had only been _white_ –

He had taken his eyes away from the most pressing problem as a Demogorgon charged at him, catching him square in the chest. He fell backwards through the Gate, rolling onto his side as the Demogorgon’s powerful jump took it further. Steve fought through the agony in his chest as he saw it round on him, once again positioning Steve between itself and the Gate –

It was going to drag him back through –

Steve pulled the trigger on the flamethrower as it pounced. The fire caught the monster with a shriek as Steve scrambled to his feet, pushing himself up – trying to drive it back towards the Gate – trying to get himself away from it –

_The Gate was closing_ –

Steve tightened his hold on the trigger as the fire spurted out further – _he had to get the Demogorgon back through before the Gate closed –_

The Demogorgon was sent crashing into hard concrete, the only remnant of the Gate a glowing red crack in the concrete. Steve’s eyes widened. He was stuck in a room with a very alive, very _angry _Demogorgon.

There was only one thing for it.

_Run._

-:-

Billy’s chest hurt as he pushed himself up from where he’d landed. He turned onto his back, breath coming in shallow gasps and coughs as he tried to move, his brain catching up as he forced his lungs to cooperate.

He was on a concrete floor, a huge hole blown open in the floor. There was a huge crack in the wall, still glowing red as it faded into nothing. The room he was in was bare, empty, the only features in the otherwise featureless room the debris that had fallen from the crack. It was dark, completely black save for the last of the light coming from the Gate, but Billy could see no white flakes in the air, no vines covering the walls…

_He’d made it._

He scrambled to his feet as he realised Steve was nowhere to be found. He remembered seeing Steve, surrounded by those monsters, holding them back as best he could, pushing himself towards the Gate before –

His heart thundered as he realised that he’d never seen Steve make it through. Nightmarish visions assaulted his mind_ – Steve on the other side of the Gate, being torn to pieces by claws and flowers of teeth – Steve, lying on the floor, blood pouring out of open wounds, his eyes wide and lifeless –_

He had to find him.

Steve must have been in some kind of basement when he’d come through. Billy seemed to be on a level. He forced himself to his feet, determined to find a stairwell – he was _sure _he’d seen one beyond the Gate when he’d arrived. He just needed to find them, then he could find Steve, and _then_…

Then they could go _home._

-:-

Steve shot a jet of flame down the corridor, hoping against hope that it would do something. He sprinted as fast as he could, as fast as his body would allow, ignoring the pain in his wrist, ignoring the pain in his chest and back from where claws had sunk into him – the wounds weren’t deep, they were manageable –

He rounded a corner and burst through a door, his heart soaring as he saw a stairwell. He began to sprint up the stairs, his heart pounding in his chest as he heard the door smash off its hinges. He took the stairs two at a time, pushing through the pain in his chest – in his back – in his hand – he had to get away –

He burst through the first door he came to, tearing down the corridor at a run. He had to get out – he had to find Billy – _if Billy had made it out of the Upside Down –_

He’d seen Billy jump. He hadn’t seen him land. That meant he’d made it through the Gate. It _had _to mean he’d made it through the Gate. He just needed to find Billy and get out of here –

Ideally without becoming dinner for a Demogorgon.

The door behind him was shattered into smithereens with an almighty crash. Steve spared it little more than a passing glance behind him, seeing the shadow of the monster at the end of the corridor as Steve pelted up the corridor. He burst through another door, praying to _God _that there was a way out –

His heart leapt out of his skin as he collided with something extremely solid. He gasped, catching his breath as he felt arms wrap themselves around him. Steve pushed desperately, trying to get away –

“_Steve!_”

He finally looked at the thing – the person he’d just collided with, taking in the bright blue eyes, looking at him with such concern and care and _relief _under the blonde curl that was slightly longer than the rest of his hair…

“Billy!” he gasped. “Billy, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to run, we’ve got to get out of here-”

Fortunately, that was the moment that the Demogorgon chose to scream down the corridor, leaving Billy in no doubt about the urgency of the situation. They started running, sprinting down the corridor as fast as they could, adrenaline lending them the last desperate vestiges of energy when all else in their bodies was completely spent.

“This way!” Billy yelled, leading the way down a fork in the corridor. He’d passed it on his way to find Steve, he knew where the hallway led. Steve thankfully didn’t question him, following without any hesitation. They burst through a bare room before Steve suddenly had an idea.

“Hold on!” Steve said, skidding to a halt as he took in the sight of the room. It was windowless – it might have been a laboratory at one point before Nancy and Jonathan shut the operation down. The Demogorgon was closing in fast, bursting into the room as Steve dived out of the way.

Steve aimed the flamethrower not at the Demogorgon itself, but at the floor in front of the door they’d just come through. He dimly heard Billy scream his name from beyond the second door, but Steve wasn’t going to be satisfied until the entrance was entirely burnt –

The back of a claw smacked into Steve’s chest, sending him sideways into the wall. He gasped, feeling himself collide with the concrete as his vision burst into a firework of colour that he should not have been seeing. Beyond it, he saw the face open up, a firework all its own, teeth instead of sparks –

A gunshot echoed across the room and something caught the Demogorgon on the side of the head. It turned, the gunshot having had little to no effect on it, and Steve caught the barest glimpse of Billy in the doorway, pistol raised, a determined look on his face.

It was all Steve needed.

He sent off another burst of flame from the flamethrower, the jet catching the Demogorgon square in its chest. Steve pushed himself off the wall, keeping the flames going as he went to stand beside Billy. He staggered backwards out of the room through the doorway as Steve kept the flames going, watching as they caught the doorframe, making it completely impassable.

Billy felt a wave of relief as he realised that the Demogorgon was trapped.

“Go – go – _go!_” Billy yelled, pushing Steve away from the burning room. Unless the fire took to the concrete, they didn’t have long before it burnt itself out, leaving the Demogorgon free to resume its chase. But they weren’t far from the door to the building…

They rounded a corner at the end of the corridor and saw a broken door. Billy found a final burst of energy as he burst through it and out into the cold night, Steve right on his heels.

They didn’t stop – not when they vaulted the wire fence, Billy’s jacket the only thing between them and some barbed wire that was designed to shred their skin to ribbons. They didn’t stop as they pelted off the road and up the hill into the trees. They didn’t stop until they were so far in the trees they’d lost almost all sense of time, the last of the adrenaline wearing off, leaving Steve staggering to a halt beside Billy, both of them drawing desperate gasps of air.

“Hey, hey, hey, easy,” Billy said, catching Steve around the shoulders as he bent double over his knees, his whole body listing sideways. “Let’s – let’s just sit down for a second.”

He guided Steve over to a tree and sat him down, propped up against the trunk. Steve was gasping for air, and Billy was visibly reminded of Steve being thrown against the wall by that monster. Billy grabbed his jacket that he hadn’t put back on since he’d grabbed it after climbing over the fence. He gently took the worst of Steve’s injuries – his bleeding wrist – and pulled the sleeve back.

“Next time,” Billy breathed, “do yourself a favour and just shoot the fucking thing.”

Steve huffed a laugh as Billy gently took his jacket and wrapped it around the wound.

“The good news is the bite isn’t that deep,” Billy said. “It’s wide, but it’s shallow.”

Steve smiled at Billy, a slightly vacant look in his eye. “Clearly, I taste horrible.”

A comment about how Billy had a better palate than a Demogorgon coupled with a tasteless comment about how the Demogorgon had tasted the least interesting parts of him danced on the tip of Billy’s tongue, but it was cut off by a hiss from Steve as Billy pressed down hard around Billy’s wrist.

“Sorry,” Billy breathed. “But you need to keep pressure on it.”

Steve’s eyes were closed as he nodded, his own hand coming up to join Billy’s around his wrist. Billy sighed as he took in the miscellany of other cuts and gashes through Steve’s shirt.

“We should look at the rest of you-”

“It’s fine,” Steve said. “Honestly, they’re not that deep.”

Billy rolled his eyes at that before ignoring Steve’s protests as he started peeling away the jacket.

“…Meant to ask before you do that,” Steve muttered, a smile playing round his lips.

Billy raised an eyebrow as he looked at Steve’s still-closed eyes. “Yeah, well, if you’re worried, your dad can take me to court.”

Steve’s eyes fluttered open at that, and suddenly, the weight of everything crashed down onto them.

“I can’t believe we made it,” Steve breathed. “I can’t believe it’s _over_.”

Billy looked up at Steve’s face, his eyes shining with emotion as he looked around the forest. Tears were sparkling in his eyes, and Billy forewent his inspection of Steve’s injuries as he pulled Steve into his arms.

It was the last straw.

Steve’s face crumpled as he started sobbing uncontrollably in Billy’s arms. His whole body shook as words failed him altogether, his arms wrapping around Billy as he clung on for dear life. The fact that they were _home, _that they were _free_… No more Russians, no more monsters, no more _pain_…

They were _free…_

He felt Billy’s shoulders shaking under his arms as he realised that he wasn’t the only one overwhelmed. He was glad that they were on the ground, holding tightly onto each other for dear life. Billy clutched at Steve, feeling Steve clutching Billy, leaning into each other as the reality washed over them.

Steve was shaking under Billy’s arms, completely overwhelmed by the sheer exhaustion in every particle of his body that made itself known in that moment. Relief the likes of which he’d never known could exist surged through him as one undeniable fact started screaming in his mind.

_They were home._

Billy was the first to find his voice.

“We made it,” Billy gasped as he held Steve against him, bracing himself against Steve’s body. “It’s over. We can go back, we can go _home,_ we can _see_ everyone again…”

Steve’s heart suddenly clenched, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He became all too aware of the brand on his back – the brand he’d never seen but _knew _what it meant –

He remembered the machine in the Upside Down. He remembered how it had caught fire, but not exploded. It could be repaired, and the Russians had the means to repair it. And when they _did _repair it, they would not simply stop.

“Billy,” he breathed. “I can’t go back.”

Billy pulled away as he frowned at Steve.

“What?”

“Billy, I – I _can’t._ The – the machine, it didn’t _blow up_ like the one in Starcourt did, it just… it just caught fire. This isn’t over. It’s just a matter of time before they come through. And the – the _Demogorgon_ – that’s still out there _too _now. If we go back home, they’ll find us. They’ll kill us – kill our _families…_”

Billy’s eyebrows creased slightly into a frown. “Steve, they’ll go after our families anyway…”

“Yeah, but if they haven’t _seen _us – if we’re still _dead_, then – then there’s a _chance _they’ll leave our families alone. I can’t go back, I have to – I have to protect them – however I can…”

Billy’s frown deepened. He didn’t agree with Steve’s logic, but he sensed there was something more to this. Steve was still shaking, his eyes wild and desperate, but Billy didn’t push the matter.

“Alright,” Billy conceded. “We don’t go home just yet. We find somewhere safe, we get some sleep. We’ll talk about this then.”

“Billy, _you _can go home if you want-”

“Steve,” Billy breathed. “How many times do I have to tell you this? _I’m not leaving you._”

“Billy-”

“We’re in this _together, _Steve,” Billy said, cupping Steve’s face in his hand. “Until the very end.”

Steve found himself nodding before his eyes drifted upwards. His breath caught in his throat as he forced himself to his feet, his eyes staring at the sky through the trees.

Above them, in the inky blackness of it all, were thousands upon thousands of stars, tiny pinpricks of light that dazzled above them. Steve’s breath came in tiny gasps, shaking as he stumbled through the trees.

He didn’t remember the last time he’d seen the sky.

Billy’s eyes followed his gaze as he got to his feet after Steve, only a fraction steadier on his feet than Steve as they worked their way through the trees. Billy couldn’t take his eyes off the dazzling canopy above them, the clear night giving them a near-perfect view. The sky was moving from an inky black to a deep blue as they wandered.

Steve had a vague idea of where he was going, walking as the sky started to get lighter. His heart was soaring in his chest as the sky went from indigo to something lighter – not enough to totally obscure the stars, but enough to herald what was to come.

Steve stumbled onto a ledge that overlooked the Quarry. His heart was pounding, his eyes shining as he took in every tiny detail – the floor untouched by anything more animated than tree roots, the air clear without a single white flake in sight. He stood on the rock, one of a few lookout points over the Quarry from the forest. Billy came up alongside him, his eyes still focused on the ever-lightening sky.

Steve’s eyes fell on him – the way his silhouette stood against the light, the curl of his hair still slightly longer than the others, an amusing quirk of the worst haircut either of them had ever received, framing his face slightly as Steve admired his profile.

“I love you.”

The words fell from his lips before Steve could stop them. He instantly felt his cheeks go red – he realised that known it for a while, but hadn’t dared to admit it to himself. The risk of losing Billy had been too great, and having those words out there made it feel _real, _so real that he couldn’t take it back. If he lost Billy now, he would feel his heart break – just as he’d done with Nancy.

Billy turned to look at Steve, surprise evident on his face underneath an emotion that Steve couldn’t read. His eyes were wide as he looked at Steve, his lips slightly parted.

“What?” Billy breathed.

Steve swallowed. “I – I love you, Billy,” he repeated.

The words hung in the air, a declaration, heavy, awaiting Billy’s response. Steve kept his face neutral, his eyes looking at Billy, a soft understanding there that this was Steve showing his hand – his _heart _– that it was for Billy to accept or reject, but that Steve couldn’t take it back.

Billy suddenly took a step towards Steve, his arms raised. For a split second, Steve wondered if Billy was going to hit him, but then Billy’s hand wrapped itself around the back of Steve’s neck and pulled him into a kiss.

Steve’s good hand slipped around Billy’s waist as he pulled him closer, closing the gap between them. He felt every inch of Billy pressed against him as he opened his mouth wider to deepen the kiss. Billy’s other hand slipped around Steve’s back, wrapped around his shoulders –

They stayed like that until a shaft of brilliant orange light broke over the horizon onto them, almost blinding them both through their eyelids with its dazzling light. Their lips broke apart as they both turned to face the sun, drinking in the first sunlight they’d seen in months. They didn’t care as the light burned spots of colour into their vision that faded away as they adjusted their eyes. Steve leant his head against Billy’s, feeling warmth spreading through his chest as he felt Billy do the same, their arms never letting each other go.

“Steve?” Billy said softly.

“Yeah?” Steve breathed back.

“Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand so ends part 3!
> 
> So. Confession time. The main reason I wrote this story was part 4. Did I want to indulge in some shameless Steve and Billy whump and angst? Yes. Did I go too far in it? Arguably. Was the reason I went too far in everything so that we all felt invested in that feeling of making it back to Hawkins? Abso-fricking-lutely. Literally, the reason I have been writing this for the past however many months has been setting up for some FUCKING HUGE PAYOFFS in part 4 that might actually feel EARNED (looking at you, Rise of Skywalker...) I actually cannot wait for this. (Which is a good thing, because who doesn't love a good virus lockdown?)
> 
> I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has come on this journey with Steve and Billy and me. I know it's been tough, there have been some interesting moments (naming no training montages...) but hopefully it'll all be worth it. Each and every one of you who has commented, kudosed, bookmarked and subscribed have kept me writing. We've still got a long way to go, but I sincerely hope you stick around for the ride. It's been a treat having all you lovely people reading this story so dedicatedly. I love each and every one of you!


	36. Part 4 Chapter 1: The Boys Are Back In Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PART FOUR – HAWKINS, FEBRUARY 1986

The cold wind of early February bit at Hawkins, the frost turning to black ice on the ground. Despite the clear skies, the sun would not thaw the ice on the ground where it could reach in the temperatures that held Hawkins in their grip. In the places where it _couldn’t _reach, the frost could have been mistaken for snow.

Billy eventually peeled himself away from the rock where they watched the sun rise. He couldn’t deny that it had been beautiful, and he understood Steve’s reluctance to move, still staring as he bathed in the light that had turned from gold to white. But he could also feel himself start to shiver, and when he felt Steve wrapping himself up in Billy’s arms slightly tighter, Billy decided to move.

“Come on,” Billy said. “We should work out what we’re going to do.”

Steve didn’t protest, taking one last look at the clear blue sky with a slightly dazed expression on his face. It took a moment for Billy to realise that, while Steve had picked up his jacket when he’d seen the stars, he was yet to put it on. His own jacket was still wrapped awkwardly around Steve’s wrist, but Billy decided to put up with the shivering.

“We need to find somewhere to go,” Billy said. “If you still don’t want to go home. We need to find somewhere the Mind Flayer doesn’t know about, somewhere sheltered, somewhere we can keep warm-”

“I might know a place,” Steve said. “I’ve… I’ve got no idea if it’s still there, but – but it _might _be.”

Billy gave him a confused look, waiting for him to elaborate.

“Do you… do you remember me telling you about the cabin my parents used to have in the woods?” Steve said.

Billy paused, thinking back. “Vaguely.”

Steve carefully picked his way through the trees. “Well, we had a storm cellar there,” he explained. “When my dad sold it, the property developers tore the building down, but when… when I was last there, they hadn’t touched the storm cellar doors. I didn’t _look_ particularly hard, but it might still be there.”

Billy had to admit that it sounded a hell of a lot better than trying to find somewhere to camp.

“Okay,” he conceded. “I’m willing to give it a shot. How far away is it?”

Steve hummed. “It’s a little way out of Hawkins,” he said. “Like, maybe… maybe a few miles east?”

Billy sighed. He didn’t particularly like the idea of a long walk into the forest, but they didn’t have a better plan.

“Fine,” he said. “But if it turns out to be a dud, you’re dead, Harrington.”

Steve rolled his eyes as he resumed carefully picking out the best way through the trees. Billy followed, keeping close. They fell into a silence that neither seemed inclined to break. There were words hanging unsaid between them, two topics that had not yet resolved themselves, but Steve did not seem overly inclined to bring either of them up.

Billy’s response to Steve’s declaration on the ledge had been distinctly lacking, and Billy could feel that like a hole in the head. He had no desire to bring it up – or to wait for Steve to bring up what he _hadn’t_ said, so decided to fill the silence with the _other _topic that Steve was reluctant to bring up.

“So are we going to talk about the _real _reason you don’t want to go home?”

Steve visibly tensed, his foot hesitating for a moment before he continued, his entire posture changing.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Billy said with a shrug. “I’ve been thinking about your reasoning for not going home, and I’ve decided it’s a load of bullshit.”

“I’m not making you stay, Billy. If you want to go home, I get it.”

Billy gave a derisive snort of laughter. “Steve, I don’t give a shit about going home,” he said. “If I never see my asshole of a dad again, I really couldn’t care less. The prospect of seeing him and having to answer questions that he’s going to beat the shit out of me for, whether I answer honestly or not, is not exactly _appealing._”

Steve glanced over at him, frowning slightly. “What about Max?”

Billy gave a slightly sad smile. “Max is _Max._ She was better off before I came into her life, and she’s probably better off now that I’m gone. She knows I’m alive, she can move on. But that’s not the point.”

Billy looked at Steve, who was determined not to meet his eyes.

“The _point _I’m trying to make, Steve,” Billy ploughed on, “is that the reason you don’t want to go home – the _actual _reason – has nothing to do with keeping our friends and family safe. Because I _know _that the second the Russians open that Gate they’re going to go after them, whether we’re there or not. And I think_ you_ know that too.”

Steve gave a noncommittal noise at the back of his throat.

“Do you want to know what _I _think?” Billy said.

“No,” Steve huffed.

He was ignored.

“_I _think that the reason you don’t want to go home is because you _don’t _want to see them all again,” Billy said matter-of-factly. “I think you’re ashamed of what happened out there. I _know _you don’t like what you did out there. And now you don’t want to face them again. You don’t want to _hear _them judge you for what happened-”

Steve wheeled around, a burning fire in his eyes belying a storm of pain swirling in the depths of his soul. His mind was filled with images of the boy in the workshop. He remembered the way the bullets had sunk into the Russian soldiers in the Upside Down, the way they’d fallen into the ground with blood trickling down his back. He could hear himself screaming out secrets he’d sworn to keep about people he’d sworn to protect for just an ounce, a fleeting _ounce _of relief…

“Of _course _I’m ashamed, Billy!” Steve all but screamed, feeling his eyes heat up with unshed tears. “I – I – I _broke!_ I swore I was going to protect them, that I was going to keep them _safe, _and now, because of me, the Russians know _everything _about them! And what’s _worse_ is that I _helped _them! I _helped _the Soviets get back here – I _would _have helped more if you hadn’t talked me into trying to get out! I helped them, I sold out my _friends _for them, I – I – I _killed _for them-”

He broke off, his voice cracking into desperate, dry gasps.

“I _killed _people for them, Billy,” he said, his eyes dark. “I made the decision and I killed a fucking _child _for them. I don’t even know _why, _but I _did it!_ And it was _me _who made that choice – not the Mind Flayer, _me! _It starts and it stops with _me. _I’m a fucking – a fucking _killer _now, Billy! I chose to join them, I chose to _kill _for them, I’m a goddamn _murdering traitor_ now, and so…”

Billy looked at Steve as he looked around the forest wildly, his eyes wide with panic.

“How do I go back after that?” Steve finished. “How am I supposed to face them again after what I’ve done?”

Billy looked at him, putting a hand gently on his arm as he looked into his brown eyes, still so full of fear, and panic, and _shame._

“Steve,” he said softly. “I get it.”

“No, you…” Steve pulled away, shoving his good hand up into his hair. “No, you _don’t!_ I know what you’re going to say, but Billy, that wasn’t _you!_ You didn’t kill Heather and all those other people, that was the _Mind Flayer!_ All those bad things that you say you’ve done; you didn’t _choose _to do _any _of it! You didn’t _choose _to kill all those people. You didn’t _choose _to join the Russians, you just followed _my _choice! The only things you _chose _to do were the only good decisions either of us made in that place. You chose to risk everything to get out – to turn on the Russians – and because of that, we’re _free! _Now, _me, _on the other hand… I chose to sell out my friends, to turn on _everything, _and for _what? _So I could… so I could…”

He broke off, gasping for air as he crouched down in the dirt, his eyes tightly shut. Billy came and sat down beside him, looking at him with a strange look in his eyes.

“So every decision I made was a _good_ one, huh?” Billy asked, making no effort to hide the bitterness in his tone. “What about trying to give you to that monster when we were in the Other Way Up?”

Steve ignored the incorrect name. “That wasn’t – that wasn’t _you…_”

“It _was _me, Steve,” Billy said bitterly. “You were dying. I didn’t know how to save you. That _thing_ planted the idea in my head, sure, but _I _was the one who chose to try it out. I _knew_ you wouldn’t like it, I knew you wouldn’t _want _it, but I wanted to save you. It seemed like the only way.”

“But that’s just it, Billy, you were trying to save my life-”

“And so were _you,_ Steve,” Billy said, his irritation getting the better of him. “You made the best decision under the circumstances – pretty fucking _impossible _circumstances at that – and it all worked out in the end.”

“Yeah,” Steve said bitterly. “The only difference being that I’ve left a mess that’s going to hurt a lot more people than just us.”

“So we clean up this mess,” Billy said. “We clean it up, and we see where we go from there.”

Steve made a noncommittal noise. “I still don’t know how I’ll be able to go back home…” he said softly.

Billy shrugged. “So we don’t go back home.”

Steve frowned at him. “What?”

“Steve, I don’t give a shit about going back home,” Billy repeated. “If I never see my dad again, it’ll be too soon. If you don’t want to go home either, we could run away. Maybe go to California like we planned, leave Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington dead in the ground and start a new life…”

Steve snorted in amusement as Billy gave him a more genuine version of his cocky grin. “You’re an idiot, Billy Hargrove.”

“I’m serious,” Billy said simply.

Steve frowned at him again, confused.

“Half our work’s been done for us,” Billy said. “If we left Hawkins behind, nobody would even know we were here. We’re already dead. No loose ends, no questions about where we’ve gone, nobody coming to look for us. We could just… make a clean break of it.”

Steve gave him an unreadable look.

“You’d seriously leave Max behind?” Steve asked.

Billy gave a small shrug. “Like I said, she’s better off without me. It’s enough for her that she knows I’m okay.”

Steve didn’t look convinced by Billy’s logic, but Billy put an arm around him, and he leant into his side.

“All that matters to me right now,” Billy said, “is that I’m with you.”

-:-

Max scrambled around her room, her hands flying over the surfaces. She wasn’t sure quite what she’d imagined her weekend to look like, a message from her long-lost stepbrother was not something that had been on the cards. Her differences with the others aside, she needed help. She couldn’t deal with this on her own.

_Where the hell was it?_

She forced herself to think straight. She needed to find her radio. She needed to tell _someone _about this. If Billy was right – if he _wasn’t _Flayed, if this _wasn’t _a trap – then this was bigger than anything they’d dealt with before. She needed to find the Gate and close it. She needed to find _Billy. _Because she’d let him go once – there was no way in Hell she was going to let him go again.

She ran her hands in a flurry over her cabinet. Her cassette tapes were tossed aside with little to no care as she searched, falling to the floor – _it had been here –_

Her heart sank as the memory came flooding back to her. Anger at Lucas, burning through her like an inferno, driving her to grab this last method of contact that she had, the one link to a group of people that she wanted nothing more to do with, that she had inexplicably held onto out of a combination of inertia and distorted sentimentality, and smashing it until it broke. She groaned with frustration.

She would have to actually _face _someone.

_Fuck Lucas_. Really, absolutely, _fuck _Lucas and whatever he had going on with Stacey Albright. The idea of going to him for help with this was one that made her feel physically sick.

_Dustin, too_ – yeah, no, that was _not happening. _She was _not _going to try and force him to listen yet again. He was too childish and immature to move past his petty, personal problems, even in the face of the _real end of the world._

_Mike, then._ Again, not an appealing prospect. She’d never particularly liked Mike, and Mike had never particularly liked her. Even in the time they’d gotten past their differences and accepted that they were part of the same friendship group, he was _not _the person she’d call in a crisis like this.

_El, on the other hand _– no. There was no way in Hell that Hopper was going to let her get El involved. They’d barely spoken to each other since the fight with Dustin, only helping each other out in class.

_Will. _That was an option – she knew he’d been close with El, so evidently possessed the emotional maturity to move past what had happened, but that had been more of a matter of circumstance. There was no telling how he’d react to her. And he probably wouldn’t want to open himself up to the potential threat of a Flayed Billy on his own, so that would involve dragging Jonathan in, and Joyce, and they’d drag in Nancy and Hopper, and Nancy would bring in Mike, and then _everyone _would get involved, and then nobody would listen to her – she’d be cast out, because this was a _Party members only problem _– she could practically _hear _Mike’s voice saying it – and then Billy would be left at the mercy of a group of people who hated her guts almost as much as they hated his.

No. She was not opening this up to them all. Not _yet_, at any rate.

She rattled through their names again, trying to think of _someone _she could go to.

_Lucas. El. Will. Mike. Dustin. Jonathan. Nancy. Joyce. Hopper. Lucas. El. Will. Mike. Dustin. Jonathan. Nancy. Joyce. Hopper. Lucas. El. Will. Mike. Dustin –_

Her eyes widened as she remembered the one person she’d forgotten – the one person who was on the fringes like she was – the one person who knew _part, _if not _all _of the story, but whom she’d never had much to do with, they’d never even had a conversation, but there was a chance that she’d be listened to…

_What did she have to lose?_

She pushed herself up off her bed and pulled on the first clothes she could find. She sprinted out of the house and grabbed her bike, a note explaining that she’d be out for the day left on the countertop. The roads were deserted – the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning was not prime time to be travelling.

It was a short cycle to the house – the last time she’d been to the house had been months ago, but Max knew the area well. She recognised the varnished wooden exterior panelling, keeping with the natural oak colour rather than painting it like so many other houses in the street were. The porch light was off, which was unsurprising, given that the sun was yet to crack over the horizon. She wanted to knock on the door, but Max realised that, even despite the urgent circumstances, she would not be thanked for waking up everyone in the house. So instead, Max wandered around the outside of the house, trying to remember which room was the right one.

Luck was on her side. The curtains had been left open, revealing short dark blonde hair spread out across the pillow, a thick comforter piled high over her.

Max winced slightly as she raised a fist against the glass and tapped lightly.

Nothing.

She tapped again, slightly louder, hesitating at just how sinister this made her look.

Still nothing. Max tapped a fraction louder, starting soft and getting louder with each knock until –

Robin stirred in her bed, rolling over, her eyes cracking open slightly to look at the irritating sound that had disturbed her. Max flinched as Robin suddenly realised that she was _not, _in fact, dreaming, that there really _was _someone outside her window, going from fear to anger in three seconds flat. She stormed out of bed, her oversized t-shirt and plaid pyjama pants all she was wearing as she unlocked the window and flung it open.

“What the _fuck, _you moron?” Robin hissed, her considerate volume in no way detracting from the anger in her voice. “What the _hell _are you doing knocking on my window in the middle of the night?”

“I’m sorry,” Max whispered back. “I know it’s early-”

“It’s not early, it’s _night-time!_”

“Uh – actually, it’s-” Max glanced over at the clock. Robin glared at it, looking at the display that cheerfully told her it was ten minutes to seven. She rounded on Max again, fury blazing in her eyes.

“You have five seconds to tell me what you want or I swear to God, I will slam this window down on your head so fast-”

“I got a message from Billy,” Max blurted out.

Robin froze, looking at her, confused.

“Billy Hargrove,” Max elaborated. “You – you know he’s alive – I got a message from him this morning – I need your help-”

Robin looked around out the window, checking if anyone was listening – not that it was likely, given the view of the back of her garden, before opening the window wider and gesturing for Max to climb in. She closed the window behind her and locked it before putting a chair in front of her door. It wouldn’t stop anyone from coming in by any stretch of the imagination, but it would give them a second’s warning before they were interrupted.

“What do you mean, you got a _message _from him?” Robin demanded.

“I mean that – _wait,_” Max broke off, looking at Robin. “Do you know about the Upside Down?”

Robin had heard more about the Upside Down than she had ever thought she would. She would have been sceptical if she hadn’t seen the Gate for herself. She gave Max a small nod as she climbed back into bed and pulled the comforter back over her.

“Well,” Max said. “When there’s a Gate nearby and one of those monsters comes through, the lights start blinking.”

Robin frowned at her, disbelief colouring her face. “So – _hang on,_” Robin said, sounding frustrated. “You’re telling me… that you came and woke me at _seven o’clock in the morning_ on a _Saturday_… because your light started flickering and you think it’s your _brother?_”

Max looked at her, astonished. “_No!_ No, it wasn’t that my light started flickering…”

“Well, _did _it start flickering?”

“Uh – _yeah, _kind of, but it wasn’t – like – _random,_” Max explained frantically. “It was controlled. It was an SOS in Morse Code. And then I asked if it was Billy, and he said _yes, _and then he said that there was a _problem-_”

“Hang on, hang on, hold up,” Robin held up a hand to stop her. “So Billy told you all this in Morse Code?”

“Not exactly,” Max ran a hand up and through her hair. “When he wasn’t flashing the SOS, he would blink once for yes, and twice for no.”

Robin nodded sagely at that. “Okay,” she said. “And you’re _sure _it was Billy?”

“Well, who the fuck _else _would it be?” Max snapped, before immediately regretting it. “Sorry, it’s just-”

Robin nodded as Max broke off. “I _mean _are you sure it wasn’t that Mind Controller thing you guys said infected him?”

Max tilted her head sideways. “Well, I asked, and he said _no_…”

“Yeah, but he’d say no even if he _was _infected,” Robin pointed out.

“_I know, _but…” Max swallowed. “When Will got trapped in the Upside Down, apparently he talked to his mom through the lights. Like – _controlled _blinks. That’s _exactly _how it was with Billy. Whenever the Mind Flayer has shown up before, the blinking is, like, _completely _random. I don’t – I don’t _know _if it’s him, but… I think it is.”

Robin nodded again, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that there was a freshman she’d never spoken to personally sat in her bedroom, talking to her about a message from another dimension, and, quite frankly, it was far too early for this.

“Right,” she said slowly. “I mean… I’m not really the most qualified person to deal with this – I mean – I’ve not really experienced this interdimensional crap before…”

Robin was trying to ignore the twist in her gut. The only reason she knew about this – about _any _of this – was thanks to working with Steve. She had been sceptical when they’d told her that there was an evil mirror dimension of their world filled with monsters – sceptical to the point where she wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t been for the fact that she’d seen the Gate and that it had been Chief Hopper and a scientist telling her in a hospital room. She felt woefully out of her depth, wondering why in the name of God this child had come to her about it.

“Look,” Max said softly. “I know it’s a lot. But I – I _really _don’t know who else to go to. The others… they won’t speak to me, and even if they _did…_”

She trailed off, her eyes stinging with tears.

“Last time… when Billy was possessed… the others, they – they didn’t want to help him. They just wanted to leave him to die… They only tried to save him because of _me._ They all hate him – even just as _Billy_ – but – but they tried to save him because I begged them to. If they – if they try and stop Billy _now_… if he _is _Flayed, they’re not going to save him.”

Robin rubbed at her eyes, looking at Max standing across from her, visibly fighting back tears. She felt a wave of sympathy for her.

“I _know _there’s a chance he’s still that – that _thing,_” Max continued determinedly. “But I _won’t _let him go – not _again. _I want to help him – I want to _save _him. Robin, he’s my _brother_…”

Robin gave her a long, calculating look.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll help you. _But_ we do it on two conditions. Number one: it waits until after my shift at work. I clock off after lunch. This crap has already cost me _one _job, I’m _not _spending another two months looking for another shitty dead-end job, okay?”

Max couldn’t contain the wave of relief that surged through her body.

“And number _two,_” Robin continued, giving her a firm look. “We tell the others.”

“What?” Max blurted out. “But we _can’t-_”

“Because they’ll kill Billy?” Robin finished for her. “I don’t think they will. And I know you’re not exactly on the best of terms with everyone, but from what I can understand, that had less to do with you wanting to save Billy and more to do with the fact that you shut everybody else out. So you and Dustin are going to make nice-”

“I’m _not _making nice with Dustin-”

“If you want my help, you are,” Robin snapped. “I’m not keeping this from him. You’re going to go and apologise for your part in whatever shit went down between the two of you. And then the two of you are going to put that shit aside, and we’re going to work together to work out how to get Billy back.”

Max gave a soft huff. She didn’t like the idea of bringing Dustin in at all.

“Look,” Robin said, softening her tone slightly. “Do you remember what the Chief said? That day at his cabin over the summer, when he told us to keep our eyes out for anything weird? About _not _investigating on our own?”

Max gave a small huff. “Hopper can’t stand the sight of me these days,” Max said. “Neither can Dustin. Even if _I _make nice with him, there’s no guarantee he’s going to make nice with _me._”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Well, you’re forgetting one very important thing,” she said, frustrated.

Max frowned at her slightly.

“_Me,_” Robin pointed out. “If he doesn’t listen, I’ll _make _him listen. If I can make _Steve Harrington _listen to me, I can make _anyone _listen to me. _So…_ you’re going to go back home, you’re going to let me get some more sleep until it’s a reasonable hour, then you’re going to meet me outside Family Video when my shift finishes at two thirty. Does that sound like a plan?”

Max pressed her lips together. She couldn’t ignore the logic in Robin’s argument, and she needed help.

“Yeah,” Max said, offering a small smile to Robin. “Sounds like a plan.”

-:-

It was about an hour and a half of following the road at a safe enough distance to stay completely hidden in the trees before they came to a dirt track that Steve informed Billy was the one that had led to the old cabin.

The advantage of not following the road directly was that Steve knew just how much it twisted and turned to avoid interesting geological features, and instead just suggested a much more direct route. Billy couldn’t help but appreciate this, because as much as he would never admit it, he was exhausted.

The track itself was long, curving gently into the forest in overgrown compacted gravel that had once upon a time been a well-kept road. Now, shoots, flowers, and even the occasional sapling sprung up among the road. Billy could completely understand, based on the images Steve had painted of his family, exactly _why _they had initially chosen such a spot for a holiday home.

He understood it even more when Steve announced that they were there.

The weak sunlight that filtered through gave the space an almost fairy-tale quality. The overgrown clearing gave way to a wide, sweeping hill, a stream bubbling at the bottom. The clearing still held vestiges of the outline of where the cabin had once been, a square outline slightly less overgrown than everything else.

“I see why you’d want to be buried in the woods,” was all Billy said.

It was a dark, macabre comment that Steve evidently didn’t understand. “What?”

Billy looked over at Steve, a small smile playing around the corners of his lips. “Back in the… _Other Side_, you said – after we found your – _grave_ – you said you’d want to be buried in the woods.”

Understanding crossed Steve’s face as he nodded.

“I can see why now,” Billy said simply. “It’s… _nice_.”

Steve nodded again, his expression unreadable. “It used to be nicer.”

Any further conversation was cut off as Steve began to pick his way through the undergrowth towards the crest of the hill. Billy watched him as he wandered further out into the woods, his head bowed as he scanned the floor. He was about ten feet away from the furthest corner of what had once been the cabin when he stopped, bending down.

“Come give me a hand, will you?” Steve called.

Billy walked over as he saw Steve bent down over a rusty metal panel on hinges, set in a concrete frame.

“It’s rusted shut,” Steve said. “I can’t get it open.”

It took their combined strength to yank up the metal panel. It came away with a screech, the hinges squealing their protest as they fought to open it.

The good news was that the people who had evidently bought the land had not cared enough about the storm cellar to do anything about it. Billy leant back with a cocky grin at Steve, gesturing down.

“After you,” he said.

Steve grinned back before starting to walk down the old wooden stairs. The room was dusty and bare – he was fairly certain that his parents had used it as an unnecessarily large wine cellar when they’d owned the cabin. He certainly remembered not being allowed in there on his own when he’d been small. He’d even been ever so slightly frightened of the storm cellar.

Now, however, the bare walls didn’t even house shelves. It was smaller than Steve remembered – he remembered it as an enormous cavern, with stairs he’d had to scale like a mountain. Now, the only thing on the dusty walls and stone floor were cobwebs and spiders.

Billy breezed past him, walking over to the single lightbulb that hung in the centre of the ceiling. A small drawstring was dangling from it. Billy pulled it, but nothing happened.

“Was it too much to hope for that the light would still work?” Billy asked, grinning back at Steve.

Steve swallowed slightly. Being back, even in this cellar that he’d only ever been in with his mom, tore at his resolve to stay away. He remembered running down the hill, his mom screaming behind him to slow down before he fell or just ran straight into the stream. Little had she known that the latter was the whole point. He remembered a Christmas covered in snow, with his father showing him how to make the perfect snowball, a distant flash as he’d aimed it at his mom. They were such distant memories, almost irreconcilable now with the image of his family that he now had.

He wondered if they missed him.

A hand clapped in front of his face, and he was suddenly found facing a slightly impatient Billy.

“Sorry, what?” Steve asked dumbly.

“I _said_ that this place is as good as we’re going to get,” Billy said, a bite of annoyance in his tone that Steve hadn’t been listening to his compliment. “And I _asked _you if you wanted to shut the door so we can, I don’t know, _sleep _for a bit?”

“_Oh – _uh, yeah, maybe,” Steve said. “Wait – if we shut the door, it’s going to be pitch black in here.”

Billy shrugged off the backpack. “That’s why I was smart and remembered to bring… _this!_”

Billy pulled out a battery powered flashlight. It was a basic black plastic model, small enough to be held in the same hand as a gun. Billy flicked it on, smiling as it emitted a small white light.

“Hey, Steve, want to hear a ghost story?” Billy held it under his chin with a cocky grin, casting grotesque shadows across his features.

Steve couldn’t help but laugh at that, rolling his eyes. “_Fuck _no,” he grinned, walking back up the stairs and pulling the storm cellar door shut. The only light came from the flashlight, which Billy was still inconveniently using as a prop. “Shine the light down over here so I don’t break my neck coming down the stairs.”

Billy obliged, rolling his eyes. Steve felt relief when he found himself on stone again, walking over to where the light was. He sat down on the ground as Billy did the same, an arm finding its way around Steve’s shoulders and pulling him into a comfortable position lying on top of Billy’s chest.

“You going to try to sleep today?” Billy asked.

Steve made a noncommittal noise. Billy ran a hand through his hair, a reassuring gesture that caused a lot of tension to drop from Steve’s shoulders.

“Come on,” Billy said softly. “You need to sleep. You’re exhausted. If anything happens, I’ll wake you.”

Steve couldn’t deny the fact that he could feel the exhaustion in every ounce of his body. Billy ran a hand through his hair again as he flicked off the flashlight, keeping the movement constant but steady. Eventually it settled into a hand in Steve’s hair, still but present.

Steve could feel Billy’s side pressed against his chest. He curled himself into Billy a fraction more, settling into a comfortable position. The arm around his shoulders could almost have been a comforter, heavy as it rested on his shoulders in just the position that he liked it.

Steve didn’t know when exactly his eyes fell shut, but it wasn’t long after they did that he drifted off.

-:-

Dustin wasn’t entirely sure quite why he’d been told to meet Robin at Family Video at the end of her shift, but he’d been told it was important, and that it was urgent. He’d managed to cycle in spite of the cold weather – the sunshine that broke through the clouds was enough to encourage him to try for some fresh air. He pulled Steve’s old jacket around him – it was no wonder Steve had loved the jacket; it was warm and _incredibly_ comfortable, despite being a fraction too large for Dustin. Dustin also found some comfort in the sentiment of it – when he wore it, it felt like he was carrying on some small part of his friend, some _legacy _to live up to, though quite _what _legacy was still yet to be determined, but he felt a certain urge to live up to what Steve had expected of him.

He pulled his bike into the bike rack in time to see his watch display the time of 14:37. Robin would probably have something to say about tardiness unless Keith was keeping her busy. The last time Keith had come up in conversation, Robin had joked that it might be easier for her to just tell him she wasn’t _that way inclined_ than to have to convince him that no, she was _not, _in fact, interested. He’d evidently watched one too many romantic comedies and had convinced himself he was the nerdy, awkward protagonist who would absolutely end up with the girl at the end of the movie.

Dustin walked into the shop, smiling as he saw Robin grabbing her jacket while talking constantly over whatever Keith was saying, a constant stream of words that, while polite, did not allow for any space of silence that could possibly be misread as her hearing Keith, or understanding that he was saying anything.

“Sure, Keith, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go, family emergency, I’ll see you on Monday, I’ve got to run – _Dustin, _there you are! Come on, we’ve got to go, yeah, _bye Keith!_”

The door swung open again as Robin ushered Dustin out, keeping up the constant stream of farewells until the door fell shut behind them. She steamed towards her car, Dustin having to jog to keep up with her, before they slid into the front seat without a word.

“Thank God,” Robin sighed breathlessly. “I thought he was going to ask me out – like, _actually _ask me out – and then I’d have to say _no, _and – well, long story short, I’d probably end up getting fired.”

“He wouldn’t fire you for not going out with him, would he?”

“If anyone’s petty enough to, it’s _Keith,_” Robin sighed dramatically. “Anyway. Enough about workplace harassment. We need to talk.”

Her tone changed like lightning. One minute it was the same long-suffering tone that had become synonymous with her pain-in-the-ass boss, the next it was all business. The change unnerved Dustin somewhat.

“Uh… what about?”

“Well…” Robin said, sounding slightly hesitant. “Max Mayfield is coming over here.”

Dustin’s expression became murderous. “_What?_” he asked, his voice threatening a storm.

“I invited her here,” Robin explained. “And I _know _what you’re going to say, and, quite honestly, I don’t give a shit, because it’s _way _past time the two of you made up, and – well, we’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“Bigger things like _what?_” Dustin’s tone did not sound convinced.

“I’ll…” Robin trailed off. “I’ll let _her _explain it, I don’t really understand it. _But_ it was enough for her to pay me a visit this morning.”

“I _told _you what she did, right?” Dustin snarled at Robin. “I _told _you how she risked all our _lives_, our very _existence-_”

“Yes, Dustin, you told me,” Robin sounded exasperated. “You told me how she tried to throw away everything Steve died for, you told me how she tried to destroy the world and all that other strange nonsense you keep spouting, and none of that _matters_ anymore-”

“Why the _fuck _would it not matter?”

“Because she got a message from Billy this morning!” Robin blurted out.

Dustin fell silent, his eyes wide and his eyebrows disappearing into his hair.

“I don’t really understand how, or what it said, but apparently some lights flashed and there was something about _Gates,_ but it was enough to make her come to me. She wanted my help, and I told her that I’d only help her if she’d make nice with you, and so she’s going to be here any minute, and when she does, I need you to hear her out.”

Dustin sat in his seat, seething. “How do you know-”

“Dustin, I don’t understand _any _of this shit!” Robin snapped. “I am the _least _qualified person to help her, but she came to _me _for help. Do you know _why?_”

Dustin didn’t answer, his eyes blazing.

“She told me this morning that she came to me because she thought that you guys wouldn’t give a shit about what happened to Billy-”

“That’s not true-”

“I’m _not _talking about that Mind Monster Billy or whatever happened, I’m talking about Billy _himself!_” Robin snapped. “And honestly, I don’t blame her for thinking that. Billy’s been stuck in that alternate dimension for months now, and everyone seems to have just accepted that he’s gone forever. But what if he’s _not? _What if he’s like Will or something, still in there, but just… _trapped._ He’s her _brother, _Dustin. If he _is _back, we can’t lose him again.”

Dustin fell silent, anger coursing through him. He struggled to find words, but Robin didn’t seem inclined either to help him or else fill the silence. The silence stretched, both of them looking out across the parking lot, Dustin still trying to figure out what he wanted to say –

He was distracted by a flaming head of hair coming into the parking lot on a skateboard. Robin got out of the car and waved her down. Max smiled – Dustin had almost forgotten that she could – but when she saw Dustin in the front seat of the car, her smile slid from her face.

Robin had the foresight to get into the car first, talking constantly as Max opened the door and slid into the back seat.

“Right, so I know you two seem to hate each other more than I hate Keith right now, which is saying a _lot,_ but we’ve got more important things to worry about than whatever the hell you dinguses decided to say to each other-”

“It’s not about what she said-” Dustin interrupted at the same time as Max making an indignant noise of protest, but Robin held a hand up.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, all business as she spoke over them. “Don’t you have some stupid rule about first blood or whatever in your stupid Party?”

She’d been thoroughly immersed against her will over the last few months into Party Law and Lore by Dustin, despite never having spoken to any of them beyond Nancy, Jonathan and Dustin for any length of time.

“Well, given that I’m not _in _your stupid Party, I don’t think it applies-” Max started.

“What did we talk about, Mayfield?” Robin said sternly.

Max huffed before falling back into her seat reluctantly. She folded her arms across her chest and glared out the window for a second.

“I’m _not _sorry for what I did,” she said, her tone hard. “I wanted to get Billy back, and there weren’t many – there weren’t _any _options. I would have done anything to get him back. I still would. But I shouldn’t have kept it from you guys. And I’m sorry things went as far as they did afterwards. I never should have gotten violent.”

She reluctantly held out her hand between the front seats, looking only at her hand, refusing to look at Dustin.

“Dustin,” Robin said. “Now it’s your turn.”

“_What?_” Dustin snapped. “After that _bullshit _apology?”

“Oh, God, just _forget it,_” Max snapped, turning to the car door only to find it locked.

“She _literally _puts the_ world in danger_ and she’s not even _sorry _about it?”

“Oh – like _you _wouldn’t do the same thing if there was a chance that you’d get back Steve-”

“Yeah, but I _didn’t, _Max-”

“Only because you couldn’t-”

“I’d have found another way, one that _didn’t _involve threatening everyone’s lives-”

“There _was _no other way-”

“Well, it looks like there is _now, _so maybe if you’d just _waited-_”

“Waited for _what?_ While my life just got worse and worse-”

“_ENOUGH!_”

The shout came from Robin, reaching her limit with their bickering. It occurred to Dustin that he’d never actually seen her angry enough to lose control before.

“The pair of you need to _shut the fuck up_ because who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong is _far _from the most important thing going on right now!” she snarled. “Dustin, you have a point. I’ll give you that much. Max _also _has a point. And neither of those points are important at this point, because the _most_ important point is that just because you _happen to_ _have _a point, it does _not _give you two a licence to treat each other like _shit on your_ _goddamn shoe!_ Being right about one thing does _not _mean that you’re right about everything! So here’s what’s going to happen: the pair of you are going to shut up, you’re going to shake hands like fucking five year olds, you’re going to work together because we _need _to work together, probably with the others, because if I’m inheriting Dingus’ role as babysitter of your stupid monster hunting club, I’m _not _going to have you two fighting like five year olds in a sandbox!”

A ringing silence followed as Robin caught her breath, looking out over the dashboard and into the parking lot through the windscreen. Dustin was staring at her, wide-eyed, while Max leant back in her chair again, avoiding everyone’s gaze.

“Did I _stutter?_” Robin snapped, mentally berating herself for picking up _that _turn of phrase from Keith.

Max leant forward again, reaching her arm through the gap in the chairs once more. She still didn’t look at Dustin, instead keeping her eyes on her hand.

Dustin hesitated for a moment, before catching sight of Robin’s all but murderous expression, still fixed on some point outside the windscreen. He swallowed before taking Max’s hand, focusing only on their hands. The way they tightened their grips around each other’s fingers did not indicate an absence of animosity, but Dustin, at least, was content to put it to one side.

The tightly coiled spring of tension that was Robin Buckley relaxed slightly at the sight of them shaking hands. When they let go, they both fell back into their seats, arms crossed, determinedly avoiding eye contact. Robin simply filed it away under her small victories that they at least seemed willing to work together for the time being.

“Good,” Robin said, sounding slightly breathless, before turning around in her seat to look at Max. “Now, _you – _tell him what happened this morning. _You,_” she said, looking at Dustin. “See what you think. Either way, I think we should bring the others in.”

Max scowled at the back of Dustin’s head as Robin turned on the car engine, before starting to explain everything as Robin pulled out of the parking lot.

-:-

It was pitch black when Steve finally woke up.

He dimly became aware of the soft rise and fall of Billy’s chest under his head. He opened his eyes to absolute darkness, wondering if he’d imagined the sensation of opening his eyes.

He knew that Billy had kept the flashlight close by. He wondered if he could reach it from where he was sitting. It had been in Billy’s far hand – not the one currently resting on his head. He pushed himself up, wincing slightly as he remembered that he had a preferred hand to take his weight. He reached out with his bad hand, fingers touching the stone ground as he tried to feel for the tell-tale plastic, ideally without waking Billy –

His hand holding him mostly upright slipped and Steve frantically caught himself with his damaged hand before he landed across Billy, hissing in pain as his wrist screamed in protest.

“Steve?” Billy’s voice came from somewhere to his right ear.

“Sorry,” Steve replied. “I didn’t mean to wake you…”

“What were you _doing?_”

“Trying to get the flashlight, but I can’t see a-”

He flinched backwards, throwing a hand over his eyes as a bright light suddenly shone in his face.

“Sorry,” Billy frantically pointed the flashlight sideways as Steve blinked repeatedly while waiting for his vision to adjust.

“We – uh – we need to do something about the lighting situation in here,” Steve said grumpily.

“Yeah, Billy agreed, sitting up. “You got any idea if this place is still hooked up to the mains?”

“Uh – _maybe…_” Steve answered, sitting up. “I mean, they didn’t bother doing anything about the storm cellar itself, but they may have cut the power when they ripped up the cabin.”

Billy groaned as he got to his feet, holding the flashlight up to the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. He blew the worst of the dust away from it, leaning close and squinting at it.

“The bulb’s blown,” he said softly. “I don’t know if there’s still power coming to it, but the bulb is bust.”

Steve frowned slightly. “Is there a way we can check whether it works?”

“Not without a new bulb,” Billy said. “I mean, I _could _try taking the bulb out and sticking my finger into the socket while switching it on and off to see whether I get electrocuted, but I’d rather have my death be _slightly _less embarrassing.”

Steve rolled his eyes exasperatedly. “Spoilsport.”

Billy shrugged – Steve could see his silhouette’s shoulders rise and fall slightly. “We could go shopping,” Billy suggested.

“Huh?”

“You know,” Billy elaborated. “Go to the shops? Get a new lightbulb, maybe some supplies?”

“Billy, we don’t have any money,” Steve pointed out. “And even if we did, we’d probably get recognised.”

“What about going shopping after hours?” Billy said slyly. “We could break into Melvald’s. Get what we needed and come back here. We’ve got face masks and hoods, people would just think we’re criminals.”

“I’m not _robbing _anyone, Billy,” Steve said coldly.

“Well, we don’t exactly have a lot of options,” Billy pointed out. “As you say, we don’t have cash. So it’s either rob a shop and take what we need, rob a _person _and buy what we need, or go home and face the music.”

Steve looked incredibly reluctant with all three of those options.

“You _know,_” Billy said. “Melvald’s probably has insurance against petty robberies. We could take everything we need, and they could just claim for loss of earnings.”

“That’s _terrible _justification, Billy,” Steve sighed. “But I guess we _do _need something to eat.”

-:-

Steve insisted on making a shopping list.

Billy couldn’t help but laugh at the idea. A fucking _shopping list. _For breaking into Melvald’s. It was so ridiculous that every time Billy thought of it, he had to duck his head to turn away from Steve.

Which, given that they were picking their way through the forest alongside the road towards downtown Hawkins, was not the best idea.

The moon was high in the sky when they finally found themselves outside Melvald’s. It was pitch black, downtown completely deserted. The shops were all dark, the cars had gone home.

Billy took the rock he’d found on the side of the road and threw it at the glass door, watching as it shattered. He stepped over the threshold, looking back at Steve through the narrow gap between the mask covering the lower half of his face up to his nose and the hood of the jacket he’d reclaimed from around Steve’s wrist. He wondered if Steve would be open to adding laundry detergent to the list.

“You get the food, I’ll get the first aid supplies and the water,” Billy instructed. It was a simple choice, given that Billy knew more about first aid than Steve. It had been Billy’s idea to ‘invest’ in a first aid kit, given that Steve probably needed some antiseptic on his hand and possibly a bandage. He also suspected that there would be more cuts and bruises before they were done.

Steve left him to it, heading towards the tins, stopping only to grab a couple of lighters from the display by the desk. He figured they’d proved useful so far, so it couldn’t hurt to have some more. He felt slightly sad at the loss of his own lighter in the Upside Down, but it couldn’t be helped. He went over to the aisle of tinned foods, grabbing any pre-made cans he could find and loading them into the backpack.

He wondered if a can each for two weeks was going to be enough – most of the cans seemed to have a two-person serving suggestion displayed on the side, so he supposed it was probably going to last them a little while. If the worst came to the worst, they could break into another shop. His reservations about what they were doing were melting fast, particularly given the abundance of what was on the shelves.

He went to grab a lightbulb from the nearby aisle, placing it carefully into the bag on top of the tins. He grunted at the weight of the bag as he pulled it over his shoulder, scanning the shop and wondering if Billy was done yet –

He froze at the sight of a copy of the Hawkins Post, the headline grabbing his attention.

_COMMISSIONER APPROVES HARRINGTON’S POLICE REFORM_

The sight of his own name sent a lance of something he couldn’t name through his gut. He walked over, as if in a trance, his fingers brushing over the paper as he pulled it out. He read the first few sentences, his breath catching in his throat around a lump that seemed to choke him.

_Mayor Harrington has implemented his flagship policy of reforming the Hawkins Police Department. New funding will be diverted towards a recruitment drive that will see new officers on the streets as early as next week, following an announcement by the Police Commissioner yesterday. Harrington’s policy was a key point in his manifesto during his campaign in August –_

“Steve!”

Billy’s hiss jerked him away from the article. He looked up to see Billy standing in front of him, holding up some woollen blankets.

“Might make it a little more comfortable, don’t you think?” he said, a cocky grin on his face that dropped at the sight of the expression on Steve’s. “Wait – what’s up?”

Steve didn’t know how to explain it. He simply held up the newspaper, his voice stuck in a lump in his throat.

Billy lowered the blankets, pushing them into his backpack before he looked at the article.

“Steve…” Billy said softly. “You don’t think-”

“There aren’t any other Harringtons in Hawkins,” Steve choked out.

Billy took the newspaper as he slung the bag over his shoulder. He studied it for a moment, taking in everything on the page.

“It’s February 1st,” Billy mused as he read the date. “It’s a Saturday.”

Steve’s eyes fell closed, trying to fight back tears. He didn’t know what he was expecting to have happened in his absence, but the idea of his parents – presumably his father – running for Mayor had not even appeared on his radar. The date, too, was another shock.

“We’ve been gone for eight months,” Steve breathed.

Billy folded up the paper and put it back on the rack. “Come on,” he said. “We should go. We’re pushing our luck if someone drives past.”

Steve froze for a moment as Billy walked over to the glass door, his eyes still on the paper. In a split second’s decision, he grabbed it again and went after Billy.

They slipped back into the shadows, making a clean break of it into the woods. Billy had taken the rock he’d used to smash through the window – they’d been wearing the gloves that they’d brought from Russia, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

They started picking their way back to the storm cellar through the trees, knowing it would probably take them about an hour to walk back. Steve knew it wasn’t terribly far from Hopper’s own cabin, a part of Hawkins just beyond the town’s limits that seemed to house those who liked to connect with nature. Nostalgia set in as he found himself following a road that he’d driven along with Dustin in tow, or with the other knuckleheads complaining about his terrible choice in music as he took them to see El.

The thought of them sent a twist in his gut as he wondered how they were doing. The notion that his _father _– his eternally straight-laced father who had built a law firm from the ground up, his father who only knew what a speeding ticket was because some of his more difficult clients had wanted to make it go away – had given up his entire career, his entire law firm to pursue local politics had completely floored Steve. He wondered what else might have changed in his absence. He wondered whether the kids were okay, how Robin and Nancy and Jonathan were doing, how Hopper was handling this new department reform, whether Joyce Byers was still in town. He’d heard rumours that she’d been thinking of moving away with Jonathan and Will, he wondered whether that was the case.

Curiosity burned through him, wondering if there was a way to check up on them without letting them know he was there. He still wanted to slip into the night – the urge to do so was far greater than his curiosity, because _how could he face them after selling them out like he had done?_

“Billy,” Steve stopped dead in his tracks. “I want to check up on the others.”

It was a jarring announcement. Billy’s eyes widened slightly as he looked at Steve.

“What, you want to go _back?_” Billy asked incredulously.

“No, not quite,” Steve said softly. “But there’s a way we can check up on them without going back.”

Billy paused. “You’ve lost me,” he deadpanned.

Steve huffed slightly. “All the kids communicate on these little radios,” he explained. “You might have seen Max with hers, I know she _had _one.”

Billy thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean,” Billy said. “Small, handheld things? Makes them look like idiots?”

“Yeah, those are the ones,” Steve said. “Well, they gave _me _one. If we can get it, we can hear what they’re up to.”

Billy pondered the suggestion for a minute. It made a lot of sense to try and get hold of one and have ears on them. If any of them ran into trouble, or – God forbid – the _Russians _found them, then Steve and Billy would know straight away.

“Okay,” Billy mused. “It’s not your worst idea in the world. Where would this radio be?”

“Well,” Steve said, running a hand through his hair. “We could start by checking my house.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, yeah... Cellar ex machina...
> 
> I don't quite know where the storm cellar idea came from, but I had the idea in my head back when I first started plotting this story. Like, there was a sort-of side plot I had at one point where they discovered it in the Upside Down, but then the Mind Flayer would have known about it and it would have been a bust.
> 
> On the plus side, though, Robin being the wonder that she is has managed to get Max and Dustin back on speaking terms. That said, I really struggled with her characterization in this chapter. Her actions and attitudes I got, but I just couldn't get her turns of phrases right at all, so I apologize for that.


	37. Part 4 Chapter 2: Hating The Hero Types

Billy winced slightly as he pulled up the storm cellar doors. His shoulders ached from carrying the bag. He’d managed to find a large heavy-duty padlock that he thought might be useful to secure the doors as a precaution – not that he particularly wanted to find himself trapped in a windowless bunker – but he thought it might be useful.

Steve had been very quiet for the rest of the journey back. Billy had no idea what he was thinking. He didn’t know much about Steve’s relationship with his father beyond the fact that once he’d sold the cabin that had now become a lifeline for Steve and Billy, the man had all but evaporated from Steve’s life, running a law firm and only showing up every now and then to tell Steve what a disappointment he was. The idea of the man leaving his entire career to run for Mayor was overwhelming.

Being back in the storm cellar seemed to have sparked some sense of life into Steve. Once he was at the bottom of the stairs, Billy made to close the doors, flashlight between his teeth before Steve stopped him.

“Hang on,” Steve said. He swung his backpack on the ground in a clatter of cans that echoed around the room before pulling out the small box with a lightbulb in it. Using the dim light of the moon shining through the trees and the weak beam of the flashlight from where Billy was watching him, he started unscrewing the dusty bulb from the light fitting.

“I swear, Steve, if you got the wrong kind of lightbulb…” Billy joked, fishing the flashlight out of his mouth to hold it slightly more usefully for Steve.

Steve ignored him as he took the bulb out of the box, carefully fitting it into the fixture. Nothing happened. Steve frowned at it.

“You – uh – might want to try turning it on?” Billy suggested.

Steve shot him an unimpressed look as he pulled on the string that seemed to function as a light switch. The unimpressed look evaporated as a weak yellow light filled the room, leaving Steve with the first smile he’d managed since Melvald’s.

“Let there be light,” Steve said simply.

He set about unpacking the rest of the backpack as Billy secured the storm cellar doors, ripping the padlock he’d found out of its packaging and securing it over the small lock that had been built into the inside of the doors.

“When I forget where I put the keys, they’re in my pants,” Billy announced to Steve, who looked up, confused. Billy knew it wasn’t likely to come up – the simple act of telling someone where he’d put something was usually enough to help him remember.

Steve turned back to the backpack, carefully unloading all the tins he’d gotten. Billy was privately surprised that they’d all fit into the bag in the first place. He started stacking them in the far corner of the room. Billy started unpacking his own bag, the bottles of water he’d found joining the cans before he started to lay out the first aid supplies he’d found.

“Hey, Steve, get over here,” he said softly, throwing out one of the blankets he’d grabbed over the floor and sitting on it. “I need to take a look at your wrist.”

“Billy, it’s fine-”

“I’m not discussing this, Steve,” Billy said firmly, using a toned-down version of what he’d called his _‘angry lifeguard’ _voice. “I’m not having you get an infection because you were too fucking stubborn to do the sensible thing.”

Steve rolled his eyes before sitting down with a huff. Billy took a smaller bottle of water out of the side of his backpack and picked up a clean washcloth and the bottle of antiseptic he’d found. He soaked the cloth in the antiseptic before holding out his hand. Steve pulled off his glove and offered his wrist over.

Billy gently dabbed at the injury. The skin wasn’t knitting together – not that Billy had expected it to – but it was going to leave a nasty scar. Steve hissed as Billy moved the cloth over the torn skin, wiping away at the dried blood and dirt and making sure the antiseptic did its job.

Billy was surprised to see a small, tiny fragment of what looked like a tooth still embedded in the flesh. He picked up a pair of tweezers he’d grabbed from Melvald’s and carefully pulled it out like a splinter. Steve let out a strange noise as Billy discarded the fragment of tooth onto the stone before dropping the tweezers and pressing the washcloth against the injury. He looked up to see Steve’s face screwed up in pain, but clearly fighting back a reaction any more serious than what he’d let out already.

“You alright?” Billy asked.

Steve nodded, his eyes tightly shut. Billy gently peeled the cloth away to see the injury – the small puncture mark where the tooth had been wasn’t bleeding, but he wiped away at it once before picking up a dressing and one of the six or seven rolls of bandage that he’d found in Melvald’s.

Billy carefully placed the dressing on top of the injury, wrapping the bandage around the wrist carefully to hold it in place. Despite having done it on countless test dummies and people with no injury to show in his first aid training, he’d managed to avoid ever being faced with an injury as serious as this. In his days as a lifeguard at Hawkins Pool, his reputation had preceded him and nobody dared to be stupid enough to get injured.

Once Billy was done, tying off the bandage in a neat little knot, he let Steve settle down. He was staring up at the ceiling as Billy packed away his makeshift first aid kit back into the boxes that the various components had come in before lying down on the blanket next to Steve.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Billy asked.

“Talk about what?”

“The paper,” Billy answered. “You seem pretty shaken up by it.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Steve asked, his voice a monotone. “My dad’s the Mayor now. There’s not much else to say.”

Billy sat up and grabbed the second blanket and pulled it over them both before folding his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling again.

“Well, it’s a big change,” Billy pointed out. “Your old man clearly went through something while you were gone.”

“Clearly,” Steve said dryly. “He was so upset that he took control of the town.”

There was something in his voice that told Billy that Steve didn’t believe the sarcasm in his own tone. Billy decided to talk about a different, albeit related, subject.

“So when were you thinking of breaking into your house to steal that radio back?” Billy asked.

“It’s not breaking in when it’s _my _house and _my _radio,” Steve said with a bite. “We can go tomorrow. Knowing my parents, they’ll probably be out during the day.”

Billy frowned at him. “You _sure _about that?” he asked dubiously. “It’s a _Sunday._”

Steve raised an eyebrow, still focused on the ceiling. “You don’t know my parents,” he said. “They haven’t even _heard _of a weekend.”

-:-

Robin rubbed her eyes as exhaustion was starting to set in. She did not feel that she needed this.

Part of the problem had been leaving it to two fourteen-year-olds to come up with an adequate plan. Robin had spent the better part of forty five minutes driving around aimlessly following the occasional directions thrown at her by Dustin while Max explained the morning’s events before she’d realised that Dustin was trying to direct her to what had, once upon a time, been Starcourt Mall. She’d vetoed that plan quite firmly, given that it was a construction site at the moment.

She’d also vetoed the idea Dustin had come up with of going to Hawkins Lab and breaking in to see if there was a Gate there. She was not about to do something incredibly dangerous and illegal on the off chance that there was something to be found there. If there wasn’t anything there, then they’d broken into a sealed government facility for no reason, and she didn’t want to think about what the sentence for that was. If there _was _something there, then that meant she had brought two high school freshmen into something extremely dangerous with nobody else, and that hadn’t gone especially well the last time she’d tried it. Neither arrest nor death particularly appealed to her – she had plans next weekend.

So, after driving around the outskirts of Hawkins aimlessly for hours – and she _knew _it had been hours because she’d been watching the clock – they had ended up back at Dustin’s house, sitting on his bedroom floor eating cookies his mom had made. The hours had only stretched as she’d ended up turfing Dustin off his bed and onto the floor so she could lie down lazily eating homemade snickerdoodles while staring at the ceiling, only half-listening to the constant incessant prattling of the two arguing freshmen in the room.

“What about bringing the others in on this?” Robin said for what felt like the millionth time. She was promptly ignored – for all the good it had done, she may as well have been talking to the tortoise.

“And so if it _is _at Hawkins Lab, then we’d need to be careful, because that means that the government are back there-” Dustin was saying.

“Dustin, if the government was back there, we’d _know_,” Max talked over him. “And Billy said that there were _Gates._ As in _more than one._ He was very clear on that point.”

“How would we know if the government was back in the Lab?” Dustin snapped. “We don’t know jack shit about what they’re up to!”

“We’d _see _them – cars, vans, there would be _loads _of things to tell us that they were back there. We haven’t seen _shit _in town-”

“Yeah, because they’re not _in _town, are they, Max?” Dustin snapped. “They’re not coming through _Hawkins_, they’re going straight to the Lab. We don’t _know _if there’s shit there, because Robin won’t take us-”

“Just pointing out, the others might have some insight,” Robin said to the ceiling, because at least the ceiling was facing her when she said it.

“Well, _Hopper_ would know if the government was back in the Lab, and he hasn’t told you guys-” Max spoke over her.

“We could _ask _him, you know,” Robin pointed out. “When we get the others involved.”

“_Would _he know, Max?” Dustin asked. “The government hasn’t told him _shit _about anything. He’s had to work it all out for himself.”

Robin’s eyes fell on the digital clock, wondering quite how many times they’d circle around to the same few points before she could go home, and nearly gave herself a heart attack when she realised it was almost one in the morning.

“_Holy shit!_” she scrambled off the bed, finally getting a reaction from the others.

“What’s up?” Dustin asked, looking alarmed.

“What’s _up – _Dustin, it’s after _midnight!_”

Dustin blinked at her, confused. “So?”

“_So_ I need to get home,” Robin explained. “And so does Max. Her mom’s probably worried sick.”

“I’ve stayed out late before-”

“Not happening, Mayfield,” Robin cut across her. “You’re going home, you’re waking up in your own bed, and then we’re going to talk about this properly with everyone else tomorrow, okay?”

Max huffed, shooting Dustin and Robin a filthy glare. “So we’ve wasted a _day_ with nothing to show for it?” she snarled.

“Hey, I don’t _have _to help you, you know!” Dustin snapped at her.

“Uh – _yes, _you _do, _unless that whole ‘_saving the world_’ crap you came out with meant fuck all to you-”

“Oh my God, _enough!_” Robin cut across them both. “Max, I get it’s frustrating, but we don’t know anything about where Billy is right now. All we have to go on is a cryptic message about Gates. We can talk to the others in the morning, but for now, we need to go home and sleep, because we’re no closer to figuring this thing out than we were five hours ago.”

“So what the hell are we supposed to _do?_” Max snapped. “The others aren’t going to have any more information than we do. We’re just going to have the _same _conversations with them.”

Robin gave her an exasperated look. “Who knows?” she said. “They might not be so busy with trying to cut each other down for long enough to agree on something. We’ll talk to them tomorrow, but in the meantime, get some sleep, try not to plan each other’s murder, and keep your eyes out for anything out of the ordinary.”

-:-

Hopper’s morning was off to a _great _start.

Really. It was truly spectacular. Getting woken up at six o’clock on a Sunday morning by a phone call telling him that Melvald’s had been broken into was a _spectacularly _dreadful way to start a morning. Truly, positively, uniquely spectacularly awful.

He pulled his Cruiser up outside the shop front to find an irate Donald Melvald waiting outside.

“I’ve had this store for over thirty years,” Donald said, sounding ever so slightly heartbroken. “I’ve had shoplifters in my time, but never anyone come and _break in after dark. _I thought we had the _trust _of this community. I _thought _people in this town were _better _than this.”

Hopper sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “When did you discover that the store had been broken into?”

“This morning,” Donald said. “I came in to get something, but then I saw the window smashed, so I called the police.”

“And what time was this?”

“Around…” Donald thought for a moment. “Maybe around six?”

“Did they take anything?”

“I haven’t had a chance to check properly, but why the hell would someone do this if they _weren’t?_”

“Well, it’s possible that this was a little more personal,” Hopper explained. “Someone bricking the window because they had a grudge isn’t unheard of. Has anyone come into the store being difficult? Any underage kids try and buy alcohol or something? Anyone who might have a personal grudge against you that isn’t to do with the store?”

Donald ran a hand over his face. “Like I say, Hopper, we’ve got a _lot _of trust from the people of this town. A lot of _loyalty. _It’s how we managed to stay in business for as long as we did when that damn _mall _came to town. Sure, we get the odd kid trying to buy booze or cigarettes, but nobody’s _ever _vandalised the store before.”

“Okay,” Hopper sighed. “I’m going to need a full inventory of anything that was taken as soon as possible. I’ll also need to speak to your employees – see if they’ve had any difficult customers come in.”

Donald nodded as Hopper walked away, stepping through the broken door. He heard the glass crunch under his feet as he stepped into the store.

So the window had been broken from the outside. That made sense, all things considered. He looked over at Powell, who was watching him with a slightly curious expression on his face.

“We find whatever they used to break the window?” Hopper asked.

“Nope,” Powell said, popping the P. “By the looks of things, they came in, swiped a load of crap and then left.”

“We got any idea what they took?” Hopper asked.

Callahan emerged from one of the aisles. “Well, they’ve done a number on the cans. So they’ve clearly got a craving for soup or something.”

_That was odd._

Hopper frowned. “You checked the register?”

Powell shrugged. “No signs of anyone trying to break into it. No scratches, no dents, nothing.”

_That was even more odd._

Hopper glanced around, his eyes landing on a security camera.

“Powell,” he said. “Ask Donald whether that camera works. If it does, I want to see the footage from last night.”

Powell nodded, stepping back out of the door to talk to Donald.

“What’re you thinking, Chief?” Callahan asked, trying to read Hopper’s increasingly unsatisfied expression.

“I’m thinking that if this was a _prank_,” Hopper mused darkly, “it was a really shit one.”

-:-

It was ten thirty when Dustin called the code red under the watchful eyes of Robin and the furious glare of Max.

“Son of a _bitch, _Mike, does it _sound _like I care that you haven’t spoken to El since Christmas?” Dustin snapped into the radio. “Just call her, it’s important. Get to my house as soon as possible. I need everyone on this. You, El, Nancy and Jonathan, Hopper and Mrs Byers. Just… get here as soon as possible. Over.”

_“Hopper and my mom are working today,” _Will’s voice crackled over the radio. _“They’re not around.”_

Dustin huffed. “Son of a _bitch_ – you know what, we’ll start without them, we’ll talk to them when we can.”

Robin groaned inwardly. The whole point of her being so adamant on getting the others involved was that she _didn’t _want to find herself being the closest thing to a responsible adult these kids had while they went monster hunting.

Robin kicked up her legs onto Dustin’s bed, once again asserting her privilege of being in charge by taking the most comfortable seating arrangement entirely for herself. Max and Dustin could fend for themselves on the floor. Having memorised the ceiling, she contented herself by memorising the poster on the wall today – it was a Star Wars poster, with Leia and Han Solo looking lovingly into each other’s eyes against the backdrop of the iconic Darth Vader helmet. Robin set about staring at every feature of the rendering of Carrie Fisher’s face, wondering exactly what it was that Leia was supposed to have seen in Harrison Ford’s character. Supposedly attractive but all the more arrogant for it, a colossal douchebag who nobly sacrificed himself at the end of the film with an unnecessarily smart one-liner.

She hated the hero types.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to spend too long wondering why, exactly, a woman as amazing as Princess Leia hadn’t realised that she could be enough for herself to not _need _the galaxy’s biggest douchebag in her life before a knock on the door sounded.

Dustin jumped to his feet and rushed out of the bedroom. They heard the front door open a second later, before muffled voices came into clarity as the bedroom door cracked open slightly.

“Now, I know how you’re going to be, but please, just – just hear me out,” Dustin was saying before he opened the door fully.

Mike, Lucas and Nancy stood behind Dustin, looking into the room. Their eyes slid over Robin on Dustin’s bed, who gave them a small, slightly bored wave, before Lucas and Mike finally locked eyes on the redhead in the room.

“Oh,” was all Lucas could manage.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Mike rounded on Dustin. “It’s _Party members only-_”

“Mike, would you just listen-”

“She’s out of the Party, Dustin, we _all _agreed-”

“Oh, _screw you, _Mike!” Max snapped, before turning to Robin. “I _told _you this would happen-”

“And that’s another thing, why the hell is _she _here?” Mike snarled at Dustin, pointing at Robin who only raised her eyebrows slightly.

“Mike, just – just _shut up and listen, _please?” Dustin snapped. “They’re both here because _they_ found _me._”

“Yeah,” Max snapped. “So drop all your ‘_Party members only_’ bullshit, Mike.”

Lucas seemed to have adopted a policy of ignoring Max’s presence altogether, looking instead at Dustin and Robin. “So what’s this ‘code red’?”

“I’ll-” Dustin broke off. “I’ll explain when everyone gets here. We heard from the others?”

“Yeah, Jonathan’s bringing El and Will,” Nancy explained. “They’ve got to pick up El, though, so they might be a while.”

“Great,” Max muttered under her breath.

“Well, if you don’t _like _it, you can _leave,_” Mike snarled at Max.

“Mike, that’s enough,” Nancy cut across any retort Max had lined up. “They won’t be more than about twenty minutes, so why don’t we all calm down while we’re waiting?”

“Easy for _you _to say-” Mike began.

“Oh my God, just _shut – up!_” Max threw her arms up in exasperation. “Nobody _cares, _Mike.”

Mike opened his mouth to retort, but Dustin gave him an almost imperceptible shake of the head. He huffed, throwing himself onto the floor in the corner, muttering angrily under his breath. Max had the decency to ignore him as Lucas joined him silently. Dustin went and sat down next to Lucas while Max walked over to the tortoise in the tank, looking at it with the only smile she was likely to wear that day.

Nancy rolled her eyes at the clear opposition between the two groups, walking across the room to the bed where Robin begrudgingly moved her feet to allow her to sit down.

“This _your_ doing?” Nancy asked Robin under her breath.

“The fighting?” Robin answered. “No, the morons managed _that_ all by themselves. I just made them sit in the same room together.”

Nancy gave a small laugh. “That’s… _pretty _impressive, given that the last time Dustin and Max had a conversation they both ended up on the floor.”

Robin joined in with the laughing. “Yeah, if I grow up, I should go into couple’s counselling.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Dustin asked accusingly.

“_You, _morons,” Robin hit back.

Mike rolled his eyes, muttering something almost inaudible except for the word ‘_species_’. Max froze by the tortoise, her expression murderous, but she didn’t look around as Nancy took the liberty of throwing a cushion at him.

It was closer to half an hour later when they heard the tell-tale sound of a car pulling up in the driveway. Dustin left the room to get the door even before they heard the knock. He waved Jonathan, Will and El in, even going so far as to manage a smile that only dropped slightly at El’s nervous look.

“Hey,” El said cautiously.

Dustin forced the smile up slightly, not looking at her properly as he turned inside after her.

“The others are all in my room,” Dustin said. “My mom’s working today, but – well – I’ll explain everything in a second.”

He opened the door again, letting them in and watching as their faces formed mirroring expressions of shock and surprise at the sight of Max. Jonathan kept his expression neutral, but El broke into a smile at the sight of Max, walking over to her without hesitation and pulling her into a tight hug. Will looked from Max to Dustin, an unreadable emotion in his dark eyes.

“It must be important,” Will commented, his tone determinedly neutral.

“It is,” Dustin said darkly, leaning against the door. “Tell them.”

Max pulled herself away from El, not looking at anyone in the room as she opened her mouth.

“I got a message from Billy,” she said quietly.

The air in the room changed instantly. Nancy sat up straight, her eyes fixed on Max. Jonathan’s eyebrows shot up into his fringe. Lucas shot to his feet while Mike looked accusingly at her. El rested a hand on her arm gently while Will gave her an intense stare that seemed to go right through her.

“You’re _serious?_” Jonathan asked.

“When did this happen?” Nancy asked almost immediately afterwards.

Max looked down at the floor, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Yesterday morning.”

“You waited a whole _day _to tell us?” Jonathan asked, suddenly accusing.

“No,” Robin said from the bed, sounding almost bored. “She told me yesterday at about four AM.”

“Why didn’t you tell _us?_”

The quiet question came from Lucas. He was looking at Robin, directing the question to her, but Max could _feel _that he wanted an answer from her. _Why didn’t you come to me, Max? I know we both know the reason, but I want you to say it._

“We don’t even know if she’s telling the _truth,_” Mike said, scrambling to his feet. “She could be making this up, for all we know!”

Max huffed, throwing her hands up in the air and looking at the ceiling. “_Why _would I make this up, Mike?”

“Uh – _I don’t know _– to get back into the Party?”

Max gave a derisive laugh. “Like I even _want _to be in your stupid fucking Party anymore-”

“Well, to try and find a way to get back together with _Lucas, _then!” Mike snapped.

Max looked like she’d been slapped, an outraged expression twisting her lips up into an expression that was pure shock.

“Earth to _Mike _– I don’t _want _to get back together with Lucas,” she snarled. “We’re _done._ We’ve been done for a really fucking long time. Just because it took _you _months to work out that you’d ended your relationship doesn’t mean that the _rest _of us have your same emotional immaturity-”

“You want to talk about _immaturity? _How about using El’s powers to _spy _on us over the summer-”

“Well, at least I-”

“Oh my God, _enough!_” Robin snapped. “If you’re going to have a fucking fight to the death, at least let me get some popcorn or something.”

“Like you can-”

“Mike, that’s _enough,_” Nancy reiterated for Robin, cutting over his protests with an icy glare. Mike looked furious, but he ultimately backed down.

“So Billy’s back?” Will finally broke his silence.

“That’s not the worst part,” Dustin said. “What _was _it, exactly, that Billy said to you?”

Max ran a hand over her face, turning away from Mike and looking back at the tortoise tank. “He said that there were Gates,” she murmured quietly.

A ringing silence followed.

“Gates?” El asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

El looked at her with a sad expression and nodded.

“As in more than one?”

The question came from Nancy, who was looking at her with a determined expression.

“That’s generally what it means when you put an ‘S’ at the end of a word,” Max bit out, but there was no heat behind it left from the fire of her exchange with Mike.

Nancy ignored the barbed comment. “Tell me everything he said,” she said, her tone all business. “How he said it. Start from the beginning.”

Max went over what she had woken up to the previous day, the anxiety that had been building within her ever since the light had started flashing threatening to burst out of her at any moment. The sheer inaction, running over the story again, and again, and _again_, was infuriating. They were wasting time trying to settle on a course of action that was to the liking of a room of people who immensely disliked her, and Max felt like she was going to be sick.

“So you think the Gate – or the _Gates _– are open?” Nancy asked, her intense stare locked on Max.

“I don’t know,” Max said, feeling drained. “Probably, if Billy’s able to _talk _to me.”

“Have you noticed anything unusual happen around the house?” Nancy asked. “Sorry, anything _else_ unusual?”

Max shrugged. “Not before the lights started going weird, and I haven’t been around enough since-”

“Wait, what about elsewhere around Hawkins?” Will cut across.

“What?” Nancy frowned at him.

“We’re looking for anything unusual, right?”

“Yeah…” Nancy’s confused frown intensified.

“Unusual like, say, _Melvald’s _getting broken into last night?”

“Wait, _what?_”

Similar exclamations came from all around the room, all overlapping in a cacophony.

_“What the hell?”_

_“Melvald’s was broken into last night?”_

_“You’re kidding!”_

“Why would anyone want to break into _Melvald’s?_” Lucas voiced his confusion.

Will looked over at him with a leading head tilt, waiting for him to work it out.

“So you think _Billy _broke into Melvald’s?” Max summarized dubiously.

Will shrugged. “Either that or it’s related somehow to the Gate opening.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Robin said, confused. “The Mind Controller-”

“_Flayer,_” Mike corrected.

“-Comes back to Hawkins,” Robin continued, ignoring Mike, “and rather than, I don’t know, fulfilling his life’s ambition to take over the world, he _breaks into a convenience store?_”

Max leant back, hunched over slightly as she looked at Robin – and _only _at Robin. “What if Billy’s not still Flayed?”

The room went silent, the air almost charged as everyone looked at Max.

“I told you, Robin,” Max said, still not looking away from her even though she was the person who’d understand the least of what Max was saying. “When Billy was talking to me, the lights weren’t flickering like they normally do when the Mind Flayer or the Demodog things are around. It was controlled. What if he found a way to get it out of him?”

“That’s not _possible,_” Mike snapped.

“Like _you _would know!” Max bit back.

“It’s… not as crazy as it sounds,” Will said slowly, looking between Max and Mike. “When it was in _me,_ it only used me when it _needed _me. The only reason it needed _Billy _was to be a host in _this _world. What if, after Max and El stopped messing around with Gates in the woods over summer, the Mind Flayer realised that there wasn’t a way back and just… I don’t know, _left _him?”

“Well, that would explain a _lot_,” Robin mused.

All eyes in the room landed on her, still staring at the Star Wars poster as she lay on Dustin’s bed.

“Look,” Robin explained. “This Mind Controller – Flayer – _thing_ needs Billy to be in this world. When it doesn’t need Billy, it leaves him. Billy’s left trapped in the… uh…”

“Upside Down,” Max supplied softly.

“Yeah – _that – _he’s trapped there as himself until the Gate opens up.”

“And when the _Gate _opens up again, the Mind Flayer needs him again,” Dustin said, catching on.

“And so Billy tries to warn Max with the lights,” Jonathan continued.

“But the Mind Flayer’s still after him,” Will continued. “So he goes through the Gate to escape.”

Memories of running through the Upside Down, watching a huge, looming shadow in the sky towering over him came shooting through his mind. He closed his eyes against the memory, shaking his head slightly to get rid of it before opening his eyes.

“But if he’s on _this _side of the Gate,” Max said, sounding choked. “Why wouldn’t he come _home?_”

“Because he’s still in danger,” Will breathed. “The Mind Flayer’s still after him. So he’s hiding somewhere.”

“Yeah, _or _this is a trap,” Mike pointed out. “The Mind Flayer _could _have sent a message to Max to try and get her to draw us out – to draw _El _out into the open. To get El to look for him so that he could find _her!_”

“Oh _shit,_” Lucas muttered. “That’s-”

“A hell of a lot more plausible, _yeah!_” Mike continued. “The Mind Flayer hasn’t _given up Billy, _he’s just trying to get _us _to come to him. It’s a _trap!_”

“Trap or not, we need to find Billy,” Nancy said firmly. “We need to find Billy, and we need to find the Gates.”

“Yeah, if there even _are _Gates!” Mike pointed out.

“There’s at least _one,_” Will said. “Otherwise the lights wouldn’t have flashed.”

“Okay,” Nancy said. “We should check up on the Melvald’s angle. The timing’s too much of a coincidence for it to _not_ be related – or at least worth a check-up. Will, do you reckon you could sweet-talk your mom into telling you what’s going on there?”

“Uh – I can _try,_” Will said hesitantly.

“Say you think it’s got something to do with the Gate,” Nancy said. “We’ll need your mom and Hopper involved anyway before this gets too much further.”

Will nodded. “Jonathan, can you give me a ride?”

Jonathan nodded. “I can check up on Melvald’s after, see if there’s anything I can work out from there.”

Nancy nodded. “The rest of us need to figure out a way to find Billy and the Gate. Max, where would-”

“If we need to find the Gate, why don’t we use compasses like last time?” Dustin suggested, cutting off Nancy.

“Oh _shit, _yeah,” Lucas said.

Nancy, Robin and Max all frowned at them, confused.

“Oh – uh – last time, we – uh – we found the Gate at Hawkins Lab with compasses.”

“It messed up the Earth’s magnetic field,” Dustin explained. “The compass pointed to the Gate instead of True North.”

“Okay,” Nancy nodded. “So if some of us go looking for the Gate, Robin and Max can go and try and work out where Billy might go-”

“No, we’re _not _splitting up,” Robin said suddenly, jolting upright.

“We can cover more ground faster if we-”

“I don’t care about covering ground, I _care _about us being _safe._”

Nancy opened her mouth to respond, but Robin cut her off.

“Nancy,” she said, looking at her with barely concealed devastation in her blue eyes. “The last time I ended up in a situation like this where the group split up, I had to watch my friend get tortured before I had to watch him _die._ I’m _not_ going after someone who is potentially possessed by an evil monster hell-bent on destroying the world on my own.”

The stark truth laid out before Nancy silenced her objections. Pain was reflected back at her in Robin’s eyes, the harsh reality of how Robin had come to join this conspiracy sending a twist of guilt and grief through Nancy’s gut. In her periphery, she saw Dustin’s head fall down, looking at the ground before he raised his head again, a steely look in his eyes.

“Okay,” Nancy said. “Jonathan, Will, stay in contact. If you find anything, don’t go chasing it up on your own.”

Jonathan nodded with a smile at Nancy.

“Right,” Nancy said. “So we find the Gate, but we don’t close it until we work out where Billy is, whether he’s still Flayed, and if so, how to get it out of him. Is that understood?”

There nods around the room, a slightly choked noise coming from Max, whose head was still bowed. Lucas looked over at her, looking for all the world like he wanted to say something to her before he turned away, his eyes falling to the floor as he mirrored her pose.

“Right then,” Nancy said. “Let’s go.”

They all pushed up and towards the door before something suddenly occurred to Dustin.

“Wait a second – _Robin!_”

She froze at the door, turning back to him as he went into his closet and pulled out an old duffel bag. He handed it to Robin with a sad smile.

“I get it,” Dustin said. “You’re scared of something like – like _that _happening again. But this might help you feel a little safer.”

She frowned at him before unzipping the bag. She suddenly remembered what was inside the bag, and the lengths Dustin had gone to in order to get it.

“He took down a _fully grown Demogorgon_ with that bat,” Dustin said. “If we need it to, I’m pretty sure we can use it to take down Billy.”

-:-

Donald was surprisingly efficient about getting the tapes over to Hopper’s office, along with a complete inventory of everything that had been taken.

The inventory itself was confusing, to say the least. It read like a shopping list for a months-long camping trip, with a few random items thrown in there. There was the wherewithal for a very well-stocked first aid kit, along with the cans that Callahan had seen ransacked, bottled water in volumes that did not even closely match up to the amount of food that had been taken, some blankets, a padlock, a newspaper, some lighters and a _lightbulb. _That was the most confusing thing there. It broke a pattern that, while not entirely strict, at least made a fragment of sense.

The security footage posed its own problems. It had all been recorded onto VHS-C tapes, but Donald hadn’t had the equipment to watch it back at Melvald’s, so he sent the tapes over to the station with Callahan. This had left Hopper incredibly confused as he struggled to watch it on the television that was not equipped for the compact tape. Eventually, he’d asked Joyce for help, and she, remembering her own adventures in watching compact tapes, had set up something that vaguely resembled the setup she’d created with Bob’s video camera.

“Do you want me to stick around?” Joyce asked, looking back over the crude setup that she’d created.

“Uh – no, Joyce, it should be fine,” Hopper said. “If it catches fire, I’ll let you know.”

Joyce grinned at him with a small huff of a laugh, her eyes lighting up as she lingered in the doorway, looking at him. Hopper allowed his own eyes to crinkle in fondness with the smile he sent her way as she left before he settled down in his chair and stuck his feet up on his desk, watching the security footage. He fast-forwarded past the previous day’s menial events, into the darkness of the store, before activity flashed up on the screen, forcing him to rewind to get back to the start.

Two men in black – he presumed they were men, going by their height and build – broke the window. The positioning of the camera in the corner of the store gave Hopper a comprehensive view as the men walked round. They had hoods up and their faces were mostly covered, and they had gloves on, but otherwise it was a largely amateur job. They didn’t even seem to notice the camera as they sailed into the store, shoving whatever they thought they needed carelessly into the backpacks. One of them even stopped to pick up the newspaper and started _reading _it, for God’s sake.

He watched as the second one joined the first, holding up two blankets casually before shoving them into the backpack as he started reading the newspaper _himself. _He put the paper back before he started walking out of the store, stopping only to pick up the rock that he’d used to break into the store. The second one grabbed the newspaper and ran after the first, before Hopper watched them run through the parking lot and off the road.

_So they hadn’t had a car with them._

Hopper rewound the tape and watched it again, this time looking for something that had been bothering him. He watched as they walked straight into the store, one of them pausing only to grab the lighters as the other went straight towards the refrigerators and grabbing two large bottles of water. He watched their exchange again, watched as they both perused the newspaper before walking out of the store and into the trees.

_They hadn’t even touched the register._

Hopper had found it odd that, in a shop full of things that could probably be used to open a register, there weren’t any dents on it indicating that they’d tried to force it open. He’d wondered if time was a factor, but they had been relaxed enough about getting interrupted to stop and _read the fucking paper._ Everything about it was weird. They’d gone to the trouble of breaking into a convenience store only to take what seemed to be camping or adventuring supplies that all up would probably have cost less than fifty dollars, yet they hadn’t been bothered enough to try and break into the register, being more interested in yesterday’s issue of _The Hawkins Post._

Hopper rewound the tape once more, focusing on the men themselves. He paused the tape as they stood side by side at the entrance, taking in their clothes, identical except for the slight wear and tear –

A realisation crashed over him.

“Joyce!” Hopper called out, elongating her name to make sure she heard him. “Can you come in here, please?”

The door to his office swung open, revealing Joyce with a smile.

“Did it catch fire?” she asked, her voice warm with amusement.

“No – uh – close the door,” he instructed. “Come here and have a look at this.”

The smile slipped slightly as she walked around the desk to look at the television. Hopper played the tape as she watched, looking increasingly confused.

“What am I looking at here, Hop?” Joyce asked.

“Look at their clothes,” he said. “What do they look like to you?”

“Uh…” she watched as he rewound the tape, pausing on the same spot where he’d analysed their attire. “They look like matching uniforms – _wait, _do you think they’re military or something?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Hopper said. “But what does that uniform remind you of?”

She looked again, leaning forward and squinting at the screen.

“Is it just me, or do those uniforms look pretty damn close to the uniform that Russian piece of shit wore?” Hopper asked.

She turned back to him, her eyes filled with horrified confirmation. “You think-”

“We knew there was a chance they’d come back eventually,” Hopper said darkly.

“But why are they robbing _Melvald’s?_” Joyce asked, aghast. “You’d have thought they’d be a little less…”

“Amateur?” Hopper finished. “Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. Particularly when you look at what they stole.”

He pushed the inventory list over to her, his eyes dark. He watched as her eyes flicked down the page, before they flicked down the page again.

“That’s…”

“Weird, I know,” Hopper said.

“It’s not just _weird,_ it’s…” Joyce paused, trying to find the right words. “It’s like… there’s _almost _a pattern. It’s like they took some of those things, like the lightbulb, to confuse us. To make it _look _more random than it actually _is._ Like… they’re trying to throw us off the scent.”

Hopper raised his eyebrows, impressed, but it still left a few burning questions. “So what? The Rooskies come back to town and break into Melvald’s to steal a load of stuff for what? A camping trip?”

“Maybe they’re camping out somewhere?” Joyce suggested. “Trying to keep a low profile?”

Hopper shook his head, frowning at the tape. “No, that’s not their style,” he said. “They’re better than that. They built an entire _mall_ in town to cover up the Gate. I don’t think they got this sloppy this fast.”

“Well, then, maybe they were looking for something else?” Joyce suggested. “Information or something.”

Hopper looked at her with the same frown he always wore when she wasn’t making sense. “From _Melvald’s?_” he asked dubiously.

“Well, _yeah,_” she said with a shrug. “You remember what… what Steve Harrington told us? When we found him underneath Starcourt?”

The way she didn’t meet his eyes, looking at the floor instead, told Hopper that she was as uncomfortable talking about that day almost as much as he was. His stomach felt like it had dropped out underneath him as he stared at his desk, understanding exactly what she was getting at.

“You think they were looking for Will,” he breathed. It wasn’t a question.

Joyce nodded. “Steve, he – he told them about Will. If the Russians are back in Hawkins, it makes sense they’d follow up on what he and Robin told them. And when they were last here, where was I working?”

Hopper didn’t need to answer. “So they go there and try to find something on you there,” Hopper muttered, running a hand over his face. “_Jesus…_”

“I need to call Will,” Joyce said abruptly, worry visible in every line of her face. “I need to make sure he’s okay.”

Hopper got up and put a gentle hand on her arm reassuringly. “They got distracted by whatever was in the paper,” he said firmly. “Once you’ve called Will, find out what yesterday’s headline was.”

Joyce nodded, not meeting his eyes as she left the room with a new-found sense of urgency. Hopper turned back to his desk and grabbed the phone, before taking out his wallet and trying to find a small scrap of paper with two words scribbled down on it next to a telephone number. He picked up the receiver and started to dial.

-:-

The woods started to look familiar to Billy as they found themselves approaching the ridge. He glanced over at Steve a few times, only his eyes visible between the hood and the mask. Those brown eyes told Billy more than enough, alternating between staring down at the floor as he carefully picked his way through the woods and looking up, a faraway gaze that seemed to pass through the trees towards their destination.

“You alright?” Billy asked cautiously.

“Yeah, I’m fine, why?”

It was the fourth time that they’d had this conversation that morning. Steve’s answer was always a variant on the same theme – an unconvincing white lie followed by some pretence that Steve didn’t have any reason to _not _be fine. As though the blindingly obvious reason of going back to his childhood home after being in what any sane person would class as Hell for eight months was somehow not enough to qualify as a reason.

“Steve, you don’t need to do that,” Billy said, trying to sound patient but intentionally letting a hint of annoyance slip into his tone.

“Do what?”

Billy’s annoyance mounted at the monotone. “Pretend that you’re not as fucked up by this as you are,” he said bluntly.

“I’m not – I’m not _fucked up _by this-”

“_Really?_” Billy asked derisively, catching Steve’s arm and pulling him to a stop. “Because I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve spoken to me today, and every single one of those times, I had to draw a response out of you.”

“Billy, I’m _okay-_”

“That’s bullshit, Steve, and you know it,” Billy said, not letting Steve pull away. “Now, this is probably going to be hard for you. If you want me to do it on my own, I can _do_ it, you just need to tell me where the radio is and how to get there. That’s fine, I’m not going to think any less of you. But if you _do _want to do this, then I need to know you’re not going to go to pieces on me being back in that house, okay?”

Steve finally succeeded in wrenching his arm free from Billy’s hand. “Billy, I’ll be okay.”

It was the break in the monotone, a burning fire in Steve’s eyes as he finally injected a fragment of emotion into his voice that convinced Billy to let him go. The fire faded slightly as Steve started leading the way up the ridge and down over the stream, the silhouette of the large house just visible through the trees.

Steve slowed to a halt, his eyes fixed on the house.

“Billy,” he said softly. “I know this is going to be hard. It’s going to be weird being back there, but – I _need_ to do this.”

Billy looked at him understandingly. “I get it, Steve. Just… don’t shut down on me, okay?”

Steve nodded, offering Billy a small smile. “Okay.”

The air between them changed as they turned back towards the house, their gait changing from the listless trudge through the undergrowth to a much stealthier creep. They slipped silently up to the treeline, giving Billy his first view of Steve’s house – his _real _house.

“You know, I think it loses something without those vines,” Billy joked. Steve elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“We need to see whether there’s a car in the driveway,” Steve said. “It’ll be a pretty good indicator of whether my parents are home.”

Steve led the way through the trees, past the fence that led into the garden and caught a glimpse of an empty driveway.

“What did I tell you?” Steve said with a small smile. “My parents haven’t heard of weekends.”

“Steve, that means _jack shit_,” Billy hissed as Steve led the way back past the fence and towards the garden.

“There’s no car in my drive, that _generally _means that they’re out-”

“It means that _one _of them is out,” Billy pointed out, catching Steve’s arm and pulling them back into the driveway. “The other one could still be home.”

“Billy,” Steve said, pointing at a window. “That room there is my dad’s study. You can see when he’s working there, because the desk backs onto the window. That window _there _is the living room. You can see _everything _in the living room. The kitchen’s empty; look – and upstairs, _that’s _my mom’s bedroom. That’s _also _empty. I’m telling you, man, my parents aren’t home.”

Billy was left speechless, searching for an answer while Steve pushed his way out of the trees and crept towards the back door. Billy slipped out after him, looking around nervously while Steve started rooting around in one of the flowerpots.

“What are you _doing?_” Billy asked.

“Looking for the spare key I used to keep in here,” Steve answered, digging slightly. “I kept locking myself out, so I hid one of the back-door keys in here.”

Billy shook his head despairingly. “I _don’t _understand how you didn’t get robbed,” he sighed.

“Well, it’s a small town,” Steve said absently, still searching. “It’s generally a lot safer than San Francisco – _aha!_”

He pulled out a small key from the dirt, blowing on it slightly to get rid of the worst of the soil. He slipped it into the lock and opened the back door into the living room. Billy watched him pocket the key before he quickly ran his hands over the freshly turned earth in the flowerpot in a vain hope of disguising it. He followed Steve into the house, watching as Steve’s bravado from a moment earlier fell from him with every step.

Steve slowed to a halt in the middle of the living room. His eyes took in everything around him, from the cushions on the couch that were slightly less perfectly arranged than how he was used to seeing them to the coffee mug left on the console table. It was the slight imperfections that threw him – despite the lack of lights on and the completely cold fireplace, the room felt more lived-in than Steve had ever remembered. He took a step towards the coffee cup – _it must have been his dad who had left it there, his mom would have put it away –_

“Steve,” Billy breathed. “We need to find the radio.”

Steve jerked his head up towards Billy’s whisper. He suddenly remembered that he was technically breaking in – _breaking into his own house to take back his own radio…_

Billy was right, though: he couldn’t afford to go to pieces here in his own living room.

He led the way up the stairs, determinedly avoiding any reminders of sentiment. He breezed past the photos on the wall, his eyes fixed on any point other than the carefully arranged frames his mother had put up.

Billy went after him, trying to keep quiet as they slipped up the wooden stairs. The floorboards didn’t creak under their weight as he tried to keep close to the retreating back of Steve, leading the way down the corridor before he opened the door –

Steve stopped dead at the sight of his bedroom.

It was completely bare. The bed still sat in the middle, just a frame and a mattress, but that was it. The wallpaper had been torn away, replaced instead with blank white walls. The rest of the furniture was gone – the only thing left was the bed.

Steve just stared blankly at the empty room, his ears filled with white noise. He barely felt Billy come up behind him, letting out a soft sigh that mingled into the buzzing in his ears.

“It was under the bed,” Steve said numbly. _The bed was still here, wasn’t it? The radio could still be there –_

“Steve,” Billy breathed, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“No, it was-” Steve pushed into the room. “It was under the bed-”

Billy caught Steve’s arm again and pulled him against his own chest, holding him there, feeling every inch of Steve’s tightly coiled tension. Steve was staring blankly at the room. He wasn’t shaking, but Billy got the impression that if he let go of Steve, Steve’s legs would give out underneath him. His whole body seemed to fluctuate between having the energy to determinedly search the entire room to find it and having no willpower to hold himself up at all.

“Steve, it’s not here,” Billy breathed.

The little of Steve’s face that Billy could see revealed huge brown eyes staring widely at the room, completely unable to process what was in front of him. While it was different, it reminded Billy of the days after the Russians would take him and return him to their cell hours or even days later, where Steve had been rendered completely incapable of the most basic tasks without help.

“I don’t understand,” Steve said quietly. “I don’t understand.”

Billy eased his grip slightly, rubbing his arm as Steve made an aborted move back into the room. He froze in the doorway, taking in the bedroom that was not his bedroom. His bedroom didn’t look like this. His bedroom had checkered wallpaper with matching drapes. His bedroom had a desk in the corner. His closet was in the corner opposite the window. He had a nightstand that had a clock that played music in the morning. He had a record player on top of his cabinet.

This shell of a room wasn’t his.

He stumbled back into the hall, looking up and down to make sure he’d got the right room. But the view was exactly the same, looking out over the pool. Across the hall was the bathroom. There were no other rooms at this end of the house. His parents’ room was down the other end of the hall, opposite the spare bedroom. It was exactly how he remembered it.

Except for the fact that his bedroom – _his bedroom _– had been turned into a shell, devoid of any personality. Even the stupid car picture that he’d picked up when he was thirteen had gone. He was left standing in the empty shell of his life, gone from his world and buried in a cold grave that had never marked his final resting place –

The air suddenly changed as they heard a car pull up into the driveway.

Billy grabbed Steve, shaking him slightly and pulling him into the white, sterile bedroom as they heard the front door open and close. Billy pulled the door to the bedroom closed, taking extreme care to shut it as quietly as possible.

They could only pray that whoever it was left soon.

-:-

Linda walked into the living room, her heels clacking against the wooden floor. She tossed her keys into a small bowl casually before she realised that something felt different.

The first thing that hit her as she walked into the room was how cold it was. She was certain that she’d left the heating on –

The back door was open.

She frowned as she walked up to it – she had made sure to lock it the previous evening, and it wasn’t like Paul to leave it open. It was _certainly _not like Paul to leave it open while he wasn’t in the house.

“Paul?” she called out.

-:-

Steve leant his head back against the wall as he heard his mom’s voice.

_It was his _mom. _She was here, she was in the same house as he was. He could go to her – he could tell her that he was okay –_

He couldn’t. There were _so many reasons _why he couldn’t do that.

“Steve,” Billy hissed, his voice barely a breath but filled with the same intensity as his most dangerous roar. “You _can’t _lose it. Not here, not now.”

-:-

Silence greeted Linda as she closed the door. She pulled it until she heard the click of the latch. She walked around the living room, making a mental inventory of anything of value. The various gold trinkets remained untouched, as did the silver photo frame that held the most recent, most genuine photo of Steven that she had – the black and white photograph that Jonathan Byers had taken. If someone had broken in, then they hadn’t wanted to steal anything –

_Unless they were still here._

Her heart started thundering in her chest. _Was it her imagination, or could she hear something upstairs?_

She thought about going to check but found her legs paralyzed by fear.

That was probably a good thing. If there _was _someone upstairs, it wasn’t smart for her to try and take them on herself.

_She just needed to think straight for a moment. Work out what to do._

-:-

Billy turned the door handle as quietly as he could, slipping out into the hallway. He pressed himself against the wall, hiding in the shadows so that he wasn’t visible from the bottom of the stairs. He looked around and beckoned Steve to come next to him.

The little of Steve’s face that was exposed was pale, the frayed end of his nerve barely holding as he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, trying to force back tears.

-:-

_Paul. She could call Paul._

Linda cautiously retraced her steps towards the hall, trying to keep as quiet as possible as she went and got the receiver. She quickly dialled a number that she’d learnt by heart. She kept her eyes on the stairs, trying to swallow her fear.

_“Mayor Harrington’s office,” _the voice said on the other end of the line.

“It’s – it’s Linda Harrington,” Linda said, trying to keep her voice steady. She was aware that it was barely more than a murmur, but that was probably for the best. “I’d like to speak to my husband.”

_“One moment, please.”_

An agonising wait followed that seemed to stretch on for hours, or it could have only been a few seconds. Linda kept her eyes on the top of the stairs, her eyes wide – her own _breathing_ too loud –

_“Linda?”_

She almost cried at the sound of Paul’s voice.

“Paul?” she whispered, cradling the receiver close to her face. “Paul, are you at work?”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.

_“Yes, I’m at work. You called me at the office.”_

He sounded confused. She could hear her own breathing amplified back into her ear as she pressed the receiver closer to her mouth, as though it might get ripped from her hands if given half a chance.

_“Linda, are you okay?”_

“I think there’s someone in the house,” she whispered, closing her eyes and letting the tears slide down her face.

-:-

Billy dared to look out slightly, hoping the shadow would be enough to conceal him. He could hear every word Steve’s mom whispered to her husband, his heart sinking at the fear in her voice.

“I’m scared, Paul,” he heard her whisper. He could see the top of her head through the wooden railings on the stairs, the top of her blonde head –

Steve sank down the wall, coming to a rest on the floor under his knee, his breathing forming words that Billy could barely make out behind the mask.

“It’s _me, _mom,” the words barely discernible from his natural breathing, not even a voice on the wind, and certainly not something Linda Harrington could hear. “It’s _me._”

-:-

Linda froze, her breathing stopping in her chest as she heard a soft noise upstairs. It had been a soft thud, so quiet she could almost have imagined it. _Perhaps it had been her heart against her chest – it was pounding so hard it might break a rib_ –

“Paul, I think they’re upstairs,” she breathed, her words only audible as they were picked up by the receiver.

_“Linda, just get out of there,” _Paul instructed down the phone. _“I’ll send the police over, just get out of there and come to my office.”_

-:-

There was a clatter as the phone dropped and swung into the wall. A second later, the front door opened and closed, and Billy’s hands were on Steve’s arm, hauling him to his feet.

“Steve, come on, we’ve got to _go!_” Billy hissed at him.

Steve forced his legs into cooperating. He couldn’t stay – _but how could he leave?_

-:-

Linda got as far as the burgundy car door, pulling on the door handle before it bounced back uselessly as she suddenly realised –

_She’d left the car keys in the little glass bowl in the hallway._

She had to go back and get them – she couldn’t _walk _to Town Hall –

She swallowed back the worst of her fear. She could run in, grab the keys, and run out again. Simple.

She had to get away. And to get away, she had to go back into the house again.

It would only be for a second.

-:-

Steve forced himself back into the living room as Billy hauled the back door open, running out into the garden. Steve was only a few feet away –

_The front door opened again_.

He wheeled around, his eyes locking onto the form of his mother as he froze for a second in the doorway. He saw her run and grab the keys out of the bowl – _she still used that bowl she’d got to try and stop Steve from losing his keys all the time _– before a terrified whimper escaped her as she caught sight of him.

She turned on her heel and hurried back towards the door – Steve wanted to follow her – _he wanted to make sure she was okay –_

A hand on his arm dragged him out into the garden, the bitter cold dousing him in reality. He stumbled through the garden and into the trees, making it to the stream before he couldn’t hold it in any longer. He turned back to the house and pulled down his mask, taking one last look at the silhouette of the building as he gasped out dry, desperate sobs.

_He couldn’t go back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHAHAHA so fun fact: there was a time I was worried that part 4's chapters might have been as short as part 1's chapters... Yeah, it turns out there's still a certain amount of faff to be had with the Party's dynamics while setting up the Great Investigation... (Seriously, though, the chapters might still get shorter towards the end...)
> 
> Also, a big shout out to the wonderful anaer who reminded me that calling flashlights 'torches' is a quintessentially British thing. My apologies for any confusion this caused last chapter. However, I've gone back and fixed it now, so that should now be less confusing! On a more general note, this story is unbeta'd, I'm relying entirely on my own knowledge of American culture to get the right names, and if I make a mistake that makes anything difficult or confusing to read, please let me know! The chances are if YOU are confused by it, there are at least 10 other readers who are also confused by it, and I really appreciate all feedback, good and bad!


	38. Part 4 Chapter 3: Making The Worst Of Things

It seemed that Jonathan and Will were not alone in wanting to see what exactly had happened at Melvald’s.

The area was closed off by police tape that stretched into the small parking lot out the front. A knot of concerned (or possibly just nosey) people were standing beyond the police tape. The area was crawling with cops – more cops than a simple breaking-and-entering should have warranted.

Jonathan had his suspicions about that. He knew a certain amount about the mutual hatred and distrust between Hopper and Mayor Harrington. Jonathan and Will had become attuned to the subtle changes in Hopper’s demeanour in the days after the pair had been forced to share a space. It made sense, particularly with the new police reforms so close, that Hopper had pulled out all the stops for the highest-profile crime that Hawkins had at that moment.

The realisation that the convenience store being broken into was the highest-profile case on Hopper’s desk did amuse Jonathan, reminding him just _how _small Hawkins was without the Upside Down.

Jonathan didn’t bother stopping, slowing slightly as he passed the yellow tape to see if there was anyone familiar around. When he couldn’t see either Donald Melvald or Hopper, he sighed, putting his foot down slightly more on the accelerator and driving to the end of the street.

“Hey, Will, can you radio Nancy and the others? Tell them Melvald’s is a bust, we’re not going to get anything from it. Tell her we’re on our way to the station to talk to mom and Hopper.”

Will looked over at him. “You _sure?_”

Jonathan tilted his head at the chaos surrounding Melvald’s. “You think we’re going to get anything out of _that?_”

Will looked around at the shop before sighing. “I guess,” he said. “The others won’t be happy, though.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not cops,” Jonathan pointed out. “So instead of pretending like we are, why don’t we go and talk to one instead?”

-:-

Hopper had seen many states of Paul Harrington, but this current one was entirely new.

“They were in my _house,_ Hopper!” Paul was raging, storming around Hopper’s office. “They were in my _house_ while my _wife _was there!”

The wife in question had taken over Hopper’s chair, hunched over with a glass of water in front of her. Joyce was sat next to her, trying to offer what little comfort she could despite the fact that Linda Harrington was refusing just about every kind gesture Joyce offered. Hopper had given up hope of comforting either of them, having taken a statement that gave every indication that the people who had broken into the house were the same people who had broken into Melvald’s. Two men dressed entirely in black, faces covered and hoods up.

“They could have _hurt _her, Hopper-”

“_Whoah, _easy there,” Hopper said over the soft noise that Linda made, trying for his patented calm but firm voice, designed for de-escalating a situation. “Why don’t we just take it down a notch, okay?”

“_Don’t-_” Paul snarled, breaking off after a word as he shot a glare at Hopper that said more than words ever could.

“This is _exactly _what I’ve been talking about, Hopper – _exactly _what has been my problem with the way you run this department for the last few months!" Paul snarled. "You couldn’t even keep us safe even though I’m the _goddamn fucking Mayor!_ What the hell kind of faith do you expect from the _rest _of the people in this town if _my _house is being broken into in _broad fucking daylight?_”

“Okay, let’s maybe not do this in front of your wife, alright?” Hopper said softly. “Joyce, get her out of here.”

Joyce, fortunately, didn’t need telling twice, gently coaxing Linda out of the chair with a gentle hand on her shoulder. Linda immediately threw up her own hands to indicate that the _last _thing she wanted was to be touched by Joyce Byers.

“I’m _fine, _I can walk, I’m not an _invalid,_” she muttered, making her own way out of the office. Joyce paused for a second, before grabbing the glass of water and following her out. The door clicked closed behind them, leaving Paul seething as he turned back to Hopper.

“_Broad daylight, _Hopper!” Paul hissed as Hopper pushed himself off a wall. “And you’re telling me that you think these punks are the same ones who broke into _Melvald’s _last night?”

“Most B-and-E’s happen during the day, actually-”

“On a _Sunday?_”

Hopper had to concede that point. Despite having the intelligence to cover their faces, they had been either incredibly stupid or incredibly cocky to break into the house in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. Or quite possibly both.

“They’ve struck _twice _in less than a day, Hopper. Less than twenty-four hours. And they struck _my house!_ And what the fuck are _you _doing?”

“Talking to _you?_” Hopper said before he could stop himself.

“_Don’t _get clever with me, Hopper!” Paul snarled as he started pacing. “I want you to put _everything _you have into finding these assholes. Money isn’t a problem; I want them _caught!_”

“Paul, I’m already following up on a lead-”

“What lead?” Paul demanded.

Hopper frowned. He didn’t particularly want to tell Paul that he suspected that the people who had broken into his house were Russian spies and that he’d called one of the most senior members of the Department of Energy who was catching an overnight flight to arrive in Hawkins tomorrow.

“It wasn’t a rhetorical question, Hopper,” Paul leaned on the desk and glared at Hopper. “What lead are you following up on?”

“I can’t tell you, Paul,” Hopper finally said, trying to keep his voice measured as he met the steel glare that was being shot his way.

Paul raised his eyebrows, his eyes widening to look slightly deranged as he held the glare in place, pushing himself off the desk.

“It’s _Mayor Harrington,_ Chief Hopper,” Paul corrected venomously. “And since you _‘can’t tell me,’_ let me tell _you _something. You are going to find the people who broke into my house. You are going to do it _before _they strike again. Failure is not an option, because _this _is your last chance. If you fail to bring them to justice – _now _–you will find yourself out of a job. Do I make myself clear, Chief Hopper?”

Hopper bit down hard on his tongue, a thousand insults dancing across his mind.

“Crystal,” Hopper bit out through gritted teeth.

-:-

Billy climbed out of the storm cellar, taking in the figure sat on the grassy hill, his knees folded into his chest with his arms wrapped around them. Steve hadn’t moved since they’d made it back, staring blankly out over the hill and down into the forest with wide, red eyes.

Billy had swallowed down his own annoyance – he’d _told _Steve that going into the house would be too much for him, that he couldn’t afford to fall apart like he had done, but Steve had insisted, bumbling in without a care, and had completely broken down at the sight of his room, stripped bare, a skeleton of what his life had once been. And then, instead of getting out of there immediately, Billy had waited for Steve to check every room, to check for the mistake that had so clearly been made. That wait, that check had delayed them enough for his mother to come home and find them in her house. And, as if _that _wasn’t infuriating enough, Billy had ended up having to drag Steve away before he’d ended up chasing her down.

Billy’s anger, however, had faded as they’d gone back to the storm cellar. He hadn’t protested when Steve hadn’t come straight downstairs, instead just freezing on the crest of the hill and staring down into the lush valley below, the only sound the babbling stream at the bottom. He’d waited as Steve sat down on the grass, his back to Billy as he stared out, not even seeing the view in front of him.

That had been at least an hour ago.

Billy hitched one of the blankets under his arm as he walked over, sitting down next to Steve. He looked over at Steve, taking in the blotchy red patches on his cheeks and around his eyes, what little skin untouched by the flushes pale. There were still tear tracks carved down his face, white lines embedded in the thin layer of dirt that neither of them had been able to shake since their last shower.

Steve didn’t look at him. He gave no sign that he’d even noticed Billy, even as Billy draped the blanket around his shoulders.

“You’re going to freeze out here,” Billy gave an unsolicited explanation of the action.

Steve didn’t even blink. Billy sighed heavily as he pulled his knees up, resting his elbows on them and folding his forearms together as he leant forward.

“I won’t say ‘I told you so’,” Billy said heavily.

There was a slight hitch in Steve’s breathing at those words. Billy took a small victory in even that meagre response, his eyes fixed on Steve as he waited patiently.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Steve finally choked out, his voice only a fraction more present than it had been when he’d been whispering to his mom through his mask at the top of his stairs.

Billy waited for a moment to see if Steve had anything more to say, watching his face as it stared out blankly over the hillside. But Steve seemed to have reached his limit for words.

“It… _sucks, _Steve,” Billy said gently. “I’m not going to pretend to you that it doesn’t. But you’re not on your own in this. I know how you feel-”

“No,” Steve breathed.

Billy frowned at him. “What?”

Steve bowed his head, leaning his forehead on his knees as fresh tears welled up in his eyes.

“Billy, you… you _don’t _know,” Steve’s voice was half an octave higher than it normally was. “The only person in this town that you care about is _Max,_ and she – she _knows _you’re alive. She knows you’re _okay_. The only reason _you’re _not going home is because you don’t give enough of a shit-”

Steve broke off, horror etched on his face. The words twisted like a knife in Billy’s gut, breathing a new fire into his anger and annoyance.

“I know you’re upset, so I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just say that,” Billy said, forcing his voice to stay calm.

“I’m sorry, Billy, I didn’t mean that,” Steve breathed, his voice barely a whisper.

“I know,” Billy said simply. “But… don’t say shit like that. I _do _give a shit. I need you to know that. It’s not just _you _who’s leaving things behind, okay?”

Steve nodded, pulling his head out of his knees and looking back out over the hill. Fresh tear tracks were making their way down his face, a look of guilt twisting his features. Billy slung an arm around his shoulder, pulling him into his side as Steve’s head fell sideways into the crook of Billy’s neck.

“She was _scared _of me, Billy.”

Steve’s voice was tiny. The tears kept rolling down his face, picking up the dirt and dust that had engrained itself in Steve’s skin.

“She ran away from me,” he all but squeaked. “Like I was going to _hurt _her. Like I was a fucking _monster._”

Billy rubbed the side of Steve’s arm reassuringly.

“I know, Steve,” was all Billy could think to say.

They lapsed into silence, the late afternoon light filtering through the trees and down onto them.

“Thank you,” Steve finally said softly.

“No problem,” Billy turned his head around to press a kiss into Steve’s hair. “I know it’s been a rough day.”

Steve shook his head slightly. “Not that,” he breathed. “I… I know this can’t be easy for you. _Leaving. _I know I’ve – I’ve been a complete fucking mess-”

Billy gave a small, sad laugh. “It’s okay, Steve-”

“No, it’s – it’s _not!_” Steve pushed himself upright, looking at Billy. “I didn’t even stop to _think _about what you must have been feeling – what _you’re _leaving behind…”

“Steve,” Billy breathed. “I’ll be fine. Whatever you decide, I’ll be fine. Good and bad shit always comes with every decision we make. I can work out how to make the best of it.”

Steve snorted. “Since when can _you _make the best of something?”

“Well, I’m pretty fucking _spectacular _at making the worst of things, so it can’t be _that _hard just to do the exact opposite.”

Steve’s snort evolved into a laugh that had Billy smiling a genuine smile down at Steve. Steve settled himself against Billy’s neck again, Billy’s arm once again slung around his shoulder.

“It also helps that I traded in my bigoted asshole of a dad for someone who _actually _loves me,” Billy said, his tone slightly more serious but the smile never fading. “It becomes a bit easier to make the best of the shit life throws at you when that happens.”

“You mean the shit _I _throw at you?” Steve muttered darkly.

The smile _did _fall from Billy’s face at that. “Steve, you know I’d do _anything _for you, right?”

Steve pulled an arm out from around his legs and slipped it around Billy’s back, nestling slightly closer into Billy’s side. He nodded slightly.

“Good,” Billy said firmly. “But you’ve _got _to stop fucking – fucking _torturing _yourself with this shit. This – this _‘revisiting the greatest hits’_ shit that you’re pulling. I know you want to get a radio, and there’s actually a pretty good reason for that, but you-”

He broke off, turning his head towards Steve, who was looking at him with guilt swirling in those dark depths.

“Steve,” Billy continued. “You can’t keep using this as a stick to beat yourself with. If you keep torturing yourself with the past, telling yourself all that shit about how you _‘need to do this’_ like you did at your house, then it’s going to end up destroying you. If you want to go back, that’s – that’s okay. But if you _don’t_… then there’s no sense in forcing yourself to see how everyone’s moved on.”

Steve nodded slightly, a numb look in his eyes. Billy used the arm around Steve’s shoulder to pull Steve’s head back into his neck, pressing another kiss into his hair.

“Now,” Billy said. “I _actually _came up here to tell you that I’ve had an idea of how to get hold of a radio.”

Steve pushed his head up against Billy’s hand, looking at him curiously.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Billy said. “I get if it’s been too much. I can do it on my own. And, for the record, if you _do _end up coming, you’re taking on the role of lookout.”

“Billy…” Steve said, frowning slightly in confusion.

Billy gave him a cocky smile. “I was wondering – would _Maxine _still have a radio?”

-:-

Robin did not agree with Nancy’s logic when she’d cheerfully announced that the best place to start looking for Gates was Hawkins Laboratory.

Robin disagreed. There were _many _better places to start looking than Hawkins Laboratory. Many better, less dangerous, less sinister, less locked-down-by-the-Government-following-interdimensional-monsters-getting-loose-and-killing-two-people places.

Still, she had been overruled. As such, she was now driving a car full of freshmen down a road behind Nancy’s car. Quite how she’d ended up in a car with Dustin, Lucas and Max was beyond her, given that it seemed like the _worst _configuration of people. It left Mike and El in a car with Nancy, and Robin driving a car where the three other occupants had managed to ruin the concept of driving in silence.

A rather impressive feat, all things considered.

Dustin was sulking in the back, because despite the fact that he’d called shotgun – a state that had almost become Dustin’s divine right as Robin’s closest friend in this group – Robin had taken one look at the prospect of Max and Lucas sharing the back seat and firmly vetoed the idea. Robin turned on the radio, humming along absently as Eurythmics faded away into ABBA.

“Oh, _God, _can we change the music?” Max groaned from the front seat.

Dustin didn’t miss a beat. “No, I’m listening to it.”

“Dude, come on,” Lucas chimed in. “You don’t even _like _ABBA.”

Robin let out a barely perceptible sigh. She’d _hoped _that the uneasy truce they all seemed to have reached in the face of the potential otherworldly threat would hold out for a little longer, but apparently not.

“Lucas, I _don’t _need you getting involved,” Max snapped.

Lucas looked at her incredulously. “Sorry for trying to _help._”

“Well, save it for your new _girlfriend, _okay?”

“_Oh my God, _she’s _not-_”

He broke off with a huff, looking out the window with his arms folded. Robin frowned, looking at Lucas in the rear-view mirror before taking the moment of lapsed silence as an opportunity to catch up with something she’d evidently missed.

“Who’s your girlfriend – or – _not _your girlfriend?”

“Stacey Albright,” Dustin answered. “They got together at the Christmas dance.”

“We didn’t _get together, _alright?” Lucas snapped. “We _kissed. _That’s it.”

Max made a derisive noise at the back of her throat. “Looked like a _little _more than just kissing-”

“Yeah, well, it _wasn’t!_” Lucas snapped. “Nothing happened, okay?”

“Oh, so your belt came undone in the girls’ bathroom for no reason, then?” Max asked disbelievingly.

Lucas felt his heart start to race. He blinked back the memory, trying to force himself not to relive the feeling of hands, unfamiliar, unwanted, travelling down towards his belt –

“I didn’t _want _that to happen-”

“Yeah, it looked like you were having a _really terrible _time-”

“No, Max, I didn’t _want _that to happen!” Lucas repeated vehemently.

The atmosphere in the car changed suddenly. Lucas could feel Dustin’s eyes on him as Max finally lapsed into silence. He turned his body completely towards the door, looking out the window. He could glimpse the wing mirror on the driver’s side, seeing Robin shoot a silencing look at Max. Whatever she had been about to say died in her throat.

“Lucas,” Robin said, her voice surprisingly soft. “When you say that you didn’t want that to happen… what _did _happen, exactly?”

“Nothing,” Lucas said a little too quickly.

“Dude,” Dustin’s voice matched Robin’s tone. “You said that the last time we asked you about it.”

“Look,” Lucas sighed. “Nothing happened, okay? I danced with her, we went into the bathrooms, she kissed me, she started to undo my belt and I told her I didn’t want that, so she stopped. Nothing happened, see?”

There was a beat of silence as Lucas hoped that his account of the story would be enough to hold back any questions –

“Then why did she ask if you enjoyed it when I came in?”

Max’s voice wasn’t accusatory anymore. It wasn’t vicious, it had none of the bite that had become usual to her tone in the last few months. It was… _concerned._

“Well,” Lucas said softly. “She didn’t exactly take it well when I told her I didn’t want anything to happen. I don’t know, she’s a bitch.”

He gave a small attempt at a laugh that wasn’t shared by anyone in the car. Dustin gave him a slightly pitying smile, but that was it.

“Lucas,” Robin said, her voice _far _too serious for his liking. “Did she _ask _you before she kissed you?”

“What girl _asks _before kissing you?” Lucas asked incredulously.

Robin sighed, switching off the music.

“Look at it this way,” she said, her voice still serious. “Reverse the roles. You drag her into the bathroom. You start kissing her. She’s not into it. You try to take off her pants. She says no. You get pissed off and tell _her _ex that something happened between you. Does that sound familiar?”

“What – _no! _I’m not a douchebag-”

“Lucas,” Robin said seriously. “Every girl I know has had something like that happen to them. _Every single one. _It’s… it’s not okay. She should have asked-”

“Then why wasn’t it a problem when Max kissed me at the Snow Ball the year before?” Lucas snapped. “She didn’t ask me then-”

“Because I’m _pretty sure _she knew you wanted something to happen between you guys,” Robin pointed out.

“You _did _try to ask Max to dance, dude,” Dustin pointed out. “From where _I _was standing at the Christmas dance, it looked slightly more like Stacey dragged you onto the dance floor before dragging you into that bathroom.”

“Yeah,” Robin said. “It’s not _always _about just asking. It’s about giving people space to say ‘no’. To get out of a situation that they’re not comfortable in. And by the sounds of it, you were pretty damn uncomfortable in that situation-”

“_Jesus, _guys, I don’t need _The Talk,_” Lucas sighed. “Next you’ll be telling me to wear a condom-”

“Lucas, we’re not trying to _give _you The Talk, I’m just trying to explain to you that just because you’re a guy, it doesn’t make the shit that this girl pulled okay,” Robin said. “But – also – _yeah, _wear a condom if you _are _going to have sex-”

“_Alright, _alright, _Jesus…_” Lucas rolled his eyes. “Seriously, it’s not a big deal.”

“No, it’s not,” Max said quietly. “But that still doesn’t make it okay.”

-:-

Callahan was waiting for Hopper outside the doors. Despite the grandeur of the house, it lacked a certain elegance that many of the other houses in the area had. Police tape surrounded the house, but Hopper’s deputies had evidently deigned to set the perimeter far enough back that it wasn’t as blatantly visible from the road as the yellow tape around Melvald’s had been.

Hopper tried not to think about the last time he’d been at the Harrington residence. It must have been the day after Starcourt, the day that Hopper’s attempt to ensure that Paul Harrington’s son was remembered as a hero had set the other man on a path that was always set to collide with his own. He’d been right in his fears that the eventual crash would not be pretty.

“What have we got?” Hopper asked Callahan as he ducked under the tape.

“Hello to you, too,” Callahan said with a smirk. “Conversation with the Mayor go that well, huh?”

Hopper didn’t bother answering as Callahan opened the door. There was a beat before Callahan decided to continue.

“We’ll have to get the Harringtons to confirm this, but nothing seems out of place,” Callahan rattled off. “I swear, they could pay my salary with the random shit that these guys didn’t take from the living room. They weren’t after money.”

“We knew that already, Callahan,” Hopper sighed.

“So you _do _think it’s the same guys?”

Hopper frowned at him, confused.

“Two B-and-E’s in the same day?” Callahan raised a sceptical eyebrow. “It’s a hell of a coincidence.”

Hopper tilted his head sideways in concession. “Yeah, we’re treating them as linked,” Hopper said. “Witness description matches the security footage from Melvald’s. Two guys in black wearing hoods and masks.”

“Well, they didn’t take anything here,” Callahan said. “Could be because they got interrupted.”

Hopper frowned slightly. “Maybe,” he said, unconvinced. “Linda Harrington said that she thought they were upstairs?”

Callahan nodded. “Yeah, we – uh – we dusted for prints, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Bedroom is completely untouched-”

“What about the kid’s bedroom?” Hopper asked.

Callahan was silent for a moment, looking at him, confused.

“You mean…” Callahan began slowly before Hopper lost patience.

“Steve Harrington’s bedroom, yeah,” Hopper said shortly.

“Chief, Steve Harrington’s _dead-_”

“Thanks for the reminder, I’d completely forgotten,” Hopper snapped sarcastically. “I’m _asking _if you checked his bedroom for anything out of the ordinary.”

“Chief, his bedroom’s a _void_.”

Hopper rounded on him. “What?”

Callahan shrugged. “I guess… the Harringtons must have cleared it out after he died. There’s nothing in there, just a bed.”

“Show me.”

Callahan spared him one final confused look before leading Hopper upstairs and opening the door.

Callahan hadn’t been lying: the bedroom _was _a void. The furniture had all been taken out, the walls repainted – hell, even the _floor _looked new. The bed in the centre of the room was all that was left, the mattress untouched. It was as though the Harringtons, in their search for closure, had wiped the room clean, stripped it back to nothing in an attempt to remove any trace of sentiment. Dust gathered on the mattress and the floor.

“The door,” Hopper said. “Was it open or shut when you found it?”

Callahan paused. “Uh – it was _open, _I think. I’ll check with Calvin, but-”

Hopper had already turned away, staring at the bare room.

“You know something we _don’t, _Chief?” Callahan asked.

Hopper’s mind was racing. If he was right, if the Russians _were _back in town, then they’d broken into Melvald’s. If Joyce was right about the fact that they’d been there to try and find information on her, following up on what the kid had told them in Starcourt, then they’d failed. It would make sense, then, that they would come to the kid’s house to try and find anything else. They’d come to the house, broken in, discovered the blank bedroom and given it up as a bad job before Linda Harrington had interrupted them.

The pattern between Melvald’s and the Harrington residence was that both attempts screamed _‘amateur’._ At Melvald’s, they’d disregarded the security camera, grabbed a load of crap that may or may not have been random, before stopping to read a paper. Here, they’d broken in during the middle of the day with only about half the intel that any half-experienced robber would know. If they’d had the patience to case the joint, they would have known that another twenty-four hours would have been a _much _better time to break in.

“Point of entry?” Hopper suddenly asked, jolting out of his reverie.

“Oh – uh…” Callahan froze for less than a second. “Back door. No signs of forced entry.”

“So they picked the lock?”

Callahan raised his eyebrows at Hopper as he led the way back down the stairs and through the living room. “Well, if they _did, _then they’re really fucking good at it,” he said. “The lock’s barely got a scratch on it.”

“They had a _key?_”

“I guess so, yeah,” Callahan commented, opening the back door and letting Hopper step outside. “But neither of the Harringtons _lost_ their keys.”

“Any spares?”

“Yeah,” Callahan said. “All accounted for in the Mayor’s study.”

Hopper looked at the back door. He looked up the wall, wondering if there was a possibility someone had climbed in before finding the key, opening the door and letting the other in –

“There’s no other point of entry,” Callahan said. “No signs of the windows being broken, forced, picked or otherwise opened. Also, Linda Harrington said the door was open when she arrived.

Hopper frowned as he looked back at the door, before something caught his eye. The soil in the pot plant next to the back door had a patch that looked darker, fresher, almost as though it had been turned over.

“Phil,” Hopper called Callahan over. “Did the Harringtons say whether they kept a spare key anywhere outside?”

Callahan frowned. “Chief, I told you, they didn’t-”

“What about their kid? Do they know if _he _kept anything outside?”

Callahan gave Hopper a worried look. “Chief, you’re placing an awful lot of importance in a ghost-”

“Phil, their kid spent most of his time living in this house on his own,” Hopper explained. “If he kept a spare key outside for emergencies, it would explain how they got in.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t the Harringtons have taken the key away when he died?”

“Not if they didn’t know it was there,” Hopper said wryly.

Callahan gave him a dubious look.

“Phil, the Harringtons barely _knew _their kid when he was alive. If he hid a key in a pot plant and they didn’t know about it, they wouldn’t have put a huge amount of time and effort into finding it again. So it stayed buried after he died.”

“Chief, that seems like a stretch…”

“Well, just – just go and check at the front door. See if any of the pot plants _there_ have been searched.”

“Chief, Mrs Harrington might have just been doing some gardening-”

“Does she strike you as the gardening _type, _Callahan?” Hopper asked dryly. “Also – none of the other plants out here have been touched. So… just go and have a look, okay?”

Callahan gave him a strange look before vanishing into the house. It took him all of about three minutes before he came back, shaking his head.

“Nothing, Chief,” Callahan said as he stepped out into the garden. “If you _are _right about this, they either got incredibly lucky or they knew exactly where to look.”

_No shit,_ Hopper thought. _And that doesn’t make sense at all._

-:-

Things were chaos at Hawkins Police Station.

Jonathan and Will found themselves being buffeted by the few uniformed officers hurrying in and out of the main station. Their mom was standing at her desk outside Hopper’s office, frantically poring over large files. There were phones ringing off the hook left, right and centre throughout the room, a flurry of activity.

“Mom?” Will asked, walking up to the desk. “What’s going on?”

His mom’s head snapped up from the file she was looking at before taking in the sight of her sons.

“_Will! Jonathan_ – oh, thank God you’re _okay_ – where the _hell _have you been?”

That… wasn’t the reaction either of them had been expecting.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Jonathan asked warily.

“I’ve been calling all around town for _hours, _Jonathan!” she sounded close to hysterical. “You can’t just _vanish off the face of the Earth!_ I’ve called the _Wheelers_, I’ve called the _Sinclairs_, I’ve called the _Hendersons, _I’ve been calling Hop’s cabin – where’s El, by the way?”

“She’s with Nancy-”

“Which is _where, _exactly?”

“Uh… that’s kind of what we wanted to talk to you about, Mom,” Will said hesitantly. “Why have you been calling everyone?”

“Yeah, we’ve… we’ve been out since a bit after breakfast, not _vanishing off the face of the Earth…_” Jonathan added. It was a poor turn of phrase, given what they were about to drop into her lap.

“I’ve been calling-” she broke off, rubbing her temple. “Look – let’s just-”

She ushered them down the corridor and into somewhere a little quieter, away from the chaos, before launching into an explanation.

“Someone broke into Melvald’s this morning-”

“Yeah, we know,” Will pointed out. “You said on the phone this morning before you had to go into work.

“Well, we think the same people broke into the Harrington place this afternoon. Now, Hop’s over there right now, but he has a _theory_ – what?”

Joyce caught the dark look her two sons exchanged, looking at each other and then at her with identical expressions.

“What’s going on?” Joyce asked, the worry in her voice sending it up an octave. “Will? Jonathan?”

“Mom…” Jonathan said slowly, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Do you think the person who broke into Melvald’s could have been Billy Hargrove?”

Whatever Joyce had been expecting, it wasn’t _that._ She felt like her stomach had dropped out of her body. She stared at Jonathan, looking between him and Will.

“Sweetheart, why do you ask that?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible.

“Max got a message,” Will explained. “Through the lights. You know… like how I talked to _you…_”

_Back when I was stuck in the Upside Down._

“You think there’s another Gate?” Joyce asked. “Sweetie – _oh God…_”

She threw her arms around Will and Jonathan’s necks, pulling them closer to her.

“Boys,” she said, releasing them with clear worry in her eyes. “Boys, I know you want to help – I know you want to fix this, but you have to promise me… _Promise _me that you won’t go out looking for anything without talking to either me or Hopper about it, okay?”

Will and Jonathan exchanged worried looks.

“Mom…” Jonathan said slowly. “What’s going on?”

Joyce looked up at him with fear swirling in her eyes. “I don’t know, Jonathan,” she breathed. “But if it _was _Billy who broke into Melvald’s and the Harrington place… he wasn’t alone.”

-:-

The garden outside the house on Cherry Lane was quiet as night descended on Hawkins. Beneath an inky blue sky, Billy could see the empty driveway, devoid of any cars. Usually a fairly good indicator that at least his dad and Susan weren’t home, but he didn’t know about Max. He wasn’t about to chance it – _especially_ not after the disastrous attempt at breaking into Steve’s place.

Billy adjusted the mask over his face, looking over at Steve by his side.

“I’m going to have a quick look around,” Billy said softly. “Susan’s probably at work, and my dad might be picking her up or something, but I don’t know about Max.”

“Billy, the house is completely dark,” Steve pointed out, looking at the black windows. “It’s not exactly screaming ‘_occupied_’…”

Billy gave a small snort of derision. “After the mess you made of breaking into your own place, I’m not exactly sure you’re qualified as an expert on burglary.”

Steve gave a tiny nod to concede the point. Billy started walking around the edge of the garden, keeping low as he walked almost as far as the road on either side of the house, taking in the dark windows. Fortunately, Max and Susan had left their drapes open, giving Billy a fairly clear view inside the house. Despite the dark house, he could see the outlines of shapes inside the house – the couch, still in the same place as it had always been, the kitchen countertops largely bare, Max’s bedroom, as messy as ever, his own bedroom, the furniture not entirely gone –

He didn’t stick around to look at that for particularly long. He didn’t _need_ to.

Steve stayed in the shadows, pressed into the bushes on the edge of the garden. Billy crept back around to him and crouched down beside him.

“So I’m pretty sure it’s empty,” Billy explained. “If Susan’s at work, she’s going to be coming back soon, so I reckon we need to go now.”

“What’s the plan?” Steve asked. “You got a key or something?”

“No,” Billy conceded. “But the good news is that Max has the same approach to home security as _you_ do, so she’s probably left the window unlocked. _Particularly _if she’s snuck out with Sinclair or something.”

“You sure about that?”

“Only one way to find out,” Billy muttered. “Stay low, keep watch on the street.”

Steve followed Billy as he slipped out of the bushes and towards the house. Steve ducked behind the wood pile as Billy climbed on the ledge on top before slowly easing the window open. It went up without any resistance, and Billy grinned smugly down at Steve.

“Told you,” Billy smirked.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Just find the radio, Hargrove.”

Billy climbed inside with a well-practiced manoeuvre. Max’s room offered the easiest way in and out of the house that didn’t involve the front door, so the pair had come to an uneasy truce. Billy came and went as he pleased, Max came and went as _she _pleased. Neither of them mentioned anything to their respective parents on the strict understanding that the other had some pretty nuclear secrets on them not to warrant risking it. They’d both become complicit in each other’s illicit activities, and the repercussions in _any _of it coming to light were too great for them both.

Billy leaned out the window and looked down at Steve. “If anything comes, just knock quietly.”

Steve nodded, turning back to the driveway, grateful that he had a pretty good view of it from this side of the house.

Billy slipped inside the room and tried to repress the twist that knotted his stomach at the realisation that he was in _Max’s room. _It was still every inch the room he remembered – the room he’d _despised _– but the small, subtle changes were enough to tighten his chest.

There was a polaroid stuck on her mirror. Billy recognised it – Susan had insisted on taking at least five of them over that Christmas. It featured an extremely grumpy looking Billy being forced to pose next to Max in front of a Christmas tree. He’d been forced into a truly hideous green jumper – another present from Susan – while Max was in a dress. It was a close call as to who had been more annoyed about their attire. Their smiles looked too forced in the photo, the only camaraderie in the picture coming from the fact that neither of them wanted to take the photo. In this particular shot – which had led to Max completely losing her shit at Billy as it forced Susan to take _yet another photo _– Billy had been flipping his middle finger at the camera from around Max’s shoulder. He’d earned himself an elbow in the side from Max with that, but fortunately the Christmas spirit seemed to have rubbed off on Neil that particular day, and he’d gotten away with a lecture about respect before they’d all sat down at dinner.

Billy’s eyes flickered from the photo to his reflection in the mirror. It was hard to believe the two people staring at him were the same people. Billy had scars all over his face, from tiny white marks to large purple ones on the bridge of his nose and his cheek. His hair, too, was different – shorter, lank curls only sitting on top of his head, the dark blonde roots only recognisable from the single long lock that fell over his forehead. His face was thinner, too, his cheekbones far too prominent in his face. His eyes looked darker, too, with large shadows under his eyes, giving them a sunken look. The tan he’d had from the Californian sun and the summer was gone, leaving his skin paler than Billy had ever remembered it.

Billy forced himself to turn away from his own reflection. He’d seen how awful Steve looked, he knew he couldn’t look _too_ much better, despite his marginally healthier relationship with sleep, but to see the glaring contrast between then and now was another thing entirely.

It wasn’t important. He needed to find that radio.

A quick glance on the top of the dresser revealed a pack of AA batteries, completely unopened. Billy frowned at it, picking it up. It seemed to Billy like that was where Max usually kept the radio, but she’d moved it. Billy’s heart sank at that.

It wasn’t completely without the bounds of possibility that Max had taken the radio with her, particularly if she’d gone to see Sinclair. But she generally tended not to take the radio if she was going to be spend the day with them anyway. She didn’t see the point.

He wondered if she’d taken to keeping it under the bed. He crouched down on the floor before pulling out an old shoebox. He opened it up to reveal a box of tampons, which he quickly shut. He put the box to one side as he peered underneath, before pushing the box back under the bed carelessly as he saw nothing else underneath the bed.

He stayed on the floor, thinking hard. He turned his head, wondering if there was any possibility it was in Max’s closet –

It was sheer luck that proved to be Billy’s salvation. He turned his head, still crouching, looking towards the closet when he caught a glimpse of something on the floor underneath. He would have missed it at any other point, but the dark object against the white skirting boards stood out.

Billy reached his hand underneath the closet, his fingers brushing a metal antenna. He pulled it closer towards him, his excitement building in his chest as he pulled it out and into the weak light of the window –

His heart sank at the state of it. The reason why the radio had been so carelessly discarded into a corner of the room was immediately apparent.

Half of the plastic casing had been completely broken off. One of the components were dangling out of the radio, only held in place by a thin wire. The circuit board was exposed, dust gathering in the wires.

A soft knock on the window suddenly jolted Billy into action. A moment later, he heard a car engine pulling into the driveway. Billy jumped up, grabbing the pack of batteries he’d spotted a moment earlier as Steve’s head appeared in the window, his hands pushing the window open as quietly as he could while ushering Billy outside.

Billy could see the headlights of a car flick off and heard a car door open and close. Billy clambered awkwardly out the window, making sure to shut it before dropping down off the ledge next to Steve. He pressed himself close to the wall, ducking down and out of sight as he listened to hear the front door open and close.

Light streamed out over the garden as the living room suddenly became occupied. Billy heard the soft voice of Susan calling out.

“Maxine?”

Billy shoved Steve sideways, pushing him towards the bushes at the back of the garden. They slipped into the trees beyond the house just in time to see a yellow light illuminate the spot they’d just been crouched in as Susan went to check on her absent daughter.

“Did you get it?” Steve asked.

Billy looked down at the prize in his hands. A pack of AA batteries and a broken radio.

“What the fuck _happened_ to it?” Steve voiced his astonishment.

Billy stared down at the radio blankly. “Does it _look _like I know?” he deadpanned.

“Sorry,” Steve said. “Do you think we could try and fix it?”

Billy didn’t lift his head, staring at the silver disc dangling from a wire connected to the circuit board. The honest answer was _no, _he didn’t think it would be possible, but after two close calls, the idea of trying to find a radio some other way was not appealing.

“We can _try,_” Billy said. “I have no idea if we’ll manage, but it’s not like I’ve got any better ideas.”

-:-

It took Robin all of about five second to decide that Hawkins Lab was _creepy._

Locked gates towered in front of her, the silhouette of a darkened building looming in the fading light, windows completely black as it seemed to swallow all light that it touched.

“Well, moron, you’re the one with the compass,” she muttered to Dustin as he came around the car.

Nancy was already out of her car, searching in the trunk for something. El was standing in front of the gates, looking up at the building with more fear in her eyes than Robin felt in her entire body. Robin watched as Mike came up behind her, resting a reassuring hand on her arm.

“El?” Robin heard him say quietly. “Are you okay?”

El seemed to steel herself, giving him a nod without taking her eyes off the building.

“You know, they’re _gone._ They won’t hurt you again. _We _won’t let them hurt you again. If you don’t want to do this, it’s okay, you don’t have to-”

“I can do it,” she said quietly, her voice full of determination.

It was this more than anything else that humbled Robin into finding the courage to brace herself, going to her own trunk and getting out Steve’s bat. She felt the weight in her hands, giving it a few experimental swings into the empty space behind the car. It felt heavy, the weighted end giving it some satisfying momentum as she forced it through the air.

“Alright,” Nancy said as she slammed her trunk down with a thud, stepping out to reveal a small revolver in her hand.

“Hey, Wheeler, are you sure you know how to use that?” Robin asked.

She was met with a few unimpressed looks from the kids while Nancy just gave her an unreadable look before not bothering to answer the question.

“Dustin, you’ve got the compass, right?” Nancy asked. “We start looking here. Dustin, follow the compass needle, try and go around the Lab and see if you can work out if the compass point changes. Go with Robin, Lucas and Max, since you all seemed to survive the car ride. Mike, El and I will go around the other way, see if we can find any evidence of anyone trying to get in or out. Guys, keep your eyes out for anything out of the ordinary. Flattened barbed wire, cut fences, cloth caught on anything, footprints, tracks, anything. Dustin, if it looks like the Gate _is _inside there, radio us and we’ll work out our next move. If you find anything, or if you run into trouble, radio us. Nobody tries to be a hero, okay?”

Dustin looked down at his compass, watching the needle swing to a point slightly to the right of the Lab.

“Uh – Nancy, I’m not sure the Gate’s here,” Dustin said. “I mean, we can check, but the compass is still pointing at True North.”

Lucas frowned at him. “Wait – it _is?_”

Dustin looked up at him and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, pointing slightly to the right of the Lab. “True North is _that _way. That’s where the compass is pointing.”

“But…” Lucas frowned at him. “When we used the compass to find the Gate when it first opened, True North was messed up for miles around. Like – _all _over Hawkins.”

“Is it possible that the Gate just _shut?_” Robin asked. “Or is that a really stupid question?”

“Not as stupid as you’d think…” Nancy pointed out. “When the Gate first opened and Jonathan and I went looking for the Demogorgon, there were little Gates opening and closing all over Hawkins where the Demogorgon was hunting. Big enough that I could get into the Upside Down to follow it. They were only open for a short time before they’d shut again.”

“Wasn’t that how the Demogorgon got into Will’s house in the first place?” Mike asked.

Nancy nodded.

“Wait…” Max said slowly. “Do you think _that’s _what Billy meant by _Gates?_”

“It’s possible,” Dustin shrugged. “The only way we’ll know for certain is if we find Billy.”

“It’s still worth looking around,” Nancy said. “The smaller Gates all opened near the first Gate, and I don’t think it would have been possible for them to open if there _hadn’t _been a Gate – a _real _Gate. The first Gate was here, so there’s a chance there’s still something to find.”

Robin looked at her dubiously, but the kids seemed to be on board with this plan. Dustin and Lucas started walking away, following the compass needle. They almost walked into the fence before Robin stopped them.

“Hey, morons, watch where you’re going!”

They looked up, both jumping slightly at the sight of the fence less than a foot in front of them. They turned and started following the fence around the Lab while Max gave them a scathing look.

“Good luck with that,” Nancy called over to Robin, a cheeky smile on her face.

Robin rolled her eyes at her. “You too.”

Dustin led the way with a certain amount of confidence that he did not necessarily feel, wandering in amongst the bare trees as the fence drove them into the forest.

“Yeah, there’s no magnetic field here,” Dustin muttered to Lucas. “Nothing’s disrupting the compass. That’s still True North.”

“Yeah, but…” Lucas sighed. “What if they’re right? What if there _was _a Gate – one of those little off-shoots of the main Gate, and something _did _come here?”

“I still think we’re wasting our time.”

“It’s a place to start,” Lucas pointed out. “We don’t exactly have any better ideas.”

“We don’t even know if Billy’s even _here,_” Dustin said. “He could still be in the Upside Down. He’s _probably _still Flayed. If we _do _find him, what the hell are we going to do?”

“Take him down,” Lucas said. “Kick his ass. Tie him up and roast the _shit_ out of him. Literally.”

“Okay,” Dustin said, entertaining the argument for a moment. “_How _are we going to do all that, exactly?”

Lucas opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out.

“Exactly,” Dustin said. “Even _Steve _couldn’t win against him, and that was when he was _normal._ What about now, when he’s Flayed?”

“No offence, Dustin, but Steve was shit in a fight,” Lucas pointed out.

“Not as shit as _we _are,” Dustin pointed out. “And he wasn’t _that _shit, he took down a Russian guard on his own.”

“So what are you saying, Dustin?”

Dustin threw a glance over to where Max and Robin were walking behind them at least eight feet away before dropping his voice.

“I’m saying that if he _is _Flayed, we might need to consider the possibility of doing whatever’s necessary to stop Billy,” Dustin muttered, making sure Max couldn’t hear him. “If he’s come back once, he’ll come back again. Even if we throw him into the Upside Down, unless we’ve dealt with the possibility of these Gates, there’s still a chance that he’ll come back again. You and I both know that we can’t stop the Gates forever, but we can stop _Billy._”

Lucas looked at him with dark fear in his eyes. “Dustin, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying-”

“If Billy’s still Flayed, if he’s _been _Flayed all this time, then he’s probably not even still _Billy._ You heard how Will started to forget things about himself when the Mind Flayer was controlling him, and that was after a matter of _days. _Billy’s had that thing in him for _months._ If we find him – if that thing’s still _inside_ him… it’s probably _all_ that’s inside him.”

The dark, serious tone of Dustin’s words carried the same weight as a death knell. The lethal seriousness in Dustin’s face told Lucas that Dustin took no pleasure in what he was saying, and it horrified Lucas that they were even having this conversation in the first place.

“Dustin, man, I don’t know…” Lucas said. “I don’t want to-”

“_I _don’t want to, either – _damn it, _Lucas, of _course, _if there’s another way, I’ll take it, but…” Dustin adjusted his hat slightly, pulling the grey jacket around himself. “I’m just saying, if it’s a choice between Billy or the world… we might have to make the tough call.”

Lucas shook his head dumbly. “Shit,” he breathed.

“Yeah,” Dustin breathed back. “Shit.”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence, both thinking about what exactly Dustin had said. The idea that things might get to the point where they’d need to _kill _Billy… Lucas didn’t like him – that much hadn’t changed, but the idea of _killing _him was another ballgame entirely. Lucas had a fairly strict moral code, and killing _anyone, _even someone who was as much of a monster as Billy had been, for the sole purpose of stopping something that Billy was as much a victim of as anyone… Lucas wasn’t sure quite where that came in his sense of morality. _Particularly _not now that he’d had the benefit of a dry run.

“Hey – uh… about what we talked about in the car…” Dustin said slowly, the subject change catching Lucas completely by surprise. “I just wanted to say… I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was how it happened.”

Lucas frowned for a minute, his brain catching up slightly. “Oh – uh… I mean, like I said, nothing _actually _happened-”

“Yeah, but it still wasn’t okay,” Dustin pointed out. “If I’d known that was what happened, I _never _would have made those jokes about you getting together with Stacey.”

Lucas paused. “Honestly, man, don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Still,” Dustin said. “If shit like that ever happens again, you _know _you can talk to us about it, right? We’re not going to judge you for shit like that.”

Lucas looked over at him, a warm feeling spreading in his chest as he tried to lighten the mood slightly.

“Oh yeah?” Lucas said slyly. “You sure you wouldn’t judge me for turning down a chance with _Stacey Albright?_”

Dustin shrugged. “From what I hear, she’s _kind of _a bitch.”

Lucas laughed before giving Dustin a sincere smile. “Thanks, dude. Seriously… that means a lot.”

Dustin grinned at him before glancing back at the compass.

“Yeah, the Gate isn’t at the Lab,” he said, showing Lucas the needle pointing resolutely ahead of them while the Lab stood to their left. He turned back over his shoulder to Robin and Max, who were getting further and further behind.

“Guys, it’s not here!” he called. “Compass is still pointing towards True North. It’s not in the Lab.”

Robin visibly sighed before picking up the pace, closing the gap between them.

“You want to radio the others, then?” Robin suggested.

Lucas swung his backpack off his shoulders, searching in his backpack for the small handset while Dustin tried to fumble with the headphones on over his hat. Dustin managed to get to his first.

“Mike? Mike, do you copy? Over?”

There was a moment of static, before –

_“Dustin? Your timing is incredible, we were just about to call you.”_

“Yeah, well, the Lab’s a bust. The Gate’s not in there. We’re going to head back to the car, we’ll see you in a second. Over.”

_“Dustin, we found something,”_ Mike’s voice burst out, his voice sounding nervous. _“East side of the Lab. Come quickly.”_

Robin, Max, Lucas and Dustin exchanged worried looks, before they took off. They ran forwards as fast as they could, chasing around the edge of the fence. Horrific images filled Dustin’s mind, imagined nightmares of the others in trouble, before –

They rounded a corner and relief crashed over him as he saw Mike waving at them.

“Guys!” he called. “Over here!”

Almost as one, their mad sprinting slowed to a jog as they approached them, seeing El and Nancy looking at something behind Mike.

“Are you guys okay?” Robin called as she came close enough to slow to a walk, panting for breath. She took a few more steps before finally seeing what, exactly, the others had found.

“_Whoah…_” she heard Dustin breathe behind her at the sight that greeted them.

“Holy shit!” Lucas gasped.

Robin felt her jaw drop as she stared up at the huge hole torn open in the wire fence. Stretching up at least nine feet, the wire mesh seemed to have been torn open like paper. The sharp ends bent outwards towards them, forced open wide enough to let something very large escape.

_Something had broken out of the Laboratory._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I suddenly have a much greater appreciation for the Duffer Brothers and their writing, because it is low-key exhausting gently teasing the characters into the places that they need to be to find out what they need to know as and when they need to know it in a way that doesn't feel contrived... (It's especially exhausting when they all keep getting it wrong, but they're doing the best they can with the information that they have...) Still, hopefully I managed to squeeze enough character moments in here without it feeling like a huge exposition dump of a chapter...


	39. Part 4 Chapter 4: Don’t You Worry About A Thing

“What the hell?”

Nancy looked over at Dustin, who was frantically looking from his compass to the tear in the fence in front of them.

“That… doesn’t make _sense…_” Dustin frantically started tapping the compass, as though it just needed a hard knock.

“What _did _this?” Robin asked.

“My guess would be a Demogorgon,” Mike said wryly. “It’s about big enough.”

“And that’s one of those…”

“Giant monster things, yes,” Lucas supplied.

“Great,” Max said. “So we’ve got Billy running around out there with a massive fucking _Demogorgon _after him.”

“_Or _working with him,” Mike muttered.

“Son of a _bitch!_” Dustin snapped, still working on the riddle of his compass. “That – that _doesn’t _make sense! If there’s a _Gate_, then the compass should be pointing right at it.”

“Unless there’s not a Gate,” Robin suggested.

“Then _why _would there be a massive fucking _Demogorgon-_sized tear in the fence?”

“Maybe there _was _a Gate, but now there isn’t,” Robin tried to explain. “Think about it – if we _are _dealing with those little off-shoot Gates that Nancy was talking about, then maybe one opened here?”

“It _would _make sense, particularly if the main Gate is in a new location,” Nancy said. “This was where the first Gate opened up, maybe the… I don’t know, the _barrier between worlds _is weaker here?”

“But then _why _am I still getting no reading from the _goddamn_ compass?” Dustin snapped. “_If _you’re right, if there _is _a new Gate, and it’s in a new location, then it would be close enough to pick up a magnetic signal from here.”

“Are you sure?” Max asked. “Is it possible that we’re just too far away from it-”

“Max, we picked up a signal from here when we were at _Mike’s_ place!” Dustin snapped. “Stop talking about things you don’t understand-”

“Oh, I’m _sorry, _I’ll just _shut up _then-”

“_Guys!_” Robin snapped, clapping her hands. “If you two want to fight about this, can I suggest that you do it when we’re _not _standing in front of where a massive monster tore its way through a fence?”

Any retort that either of them may have had was cut off by an explosion of sound coming from three different radios.

_“Guys? This is Will, do you copy? Over!”_

Lucas got to his radio first, still in his hand from where he’d extracted it.

“This is Lucas, I copy. Did you get hold of Hopper and your mom? Over.”

_“Yeah, we did, and… there’s more to this than we thought. Where are you guys?”_

“We’re… we’re at Hawkins Lab,” Lucas explained. “We’re all here. We figured it was as good a place as any to start looking for the Gate, and we’ve found something… _really _weird. Can you guys come meet us?”

There was a scuffling sound on the other end of the radio before –

_“What the _hell _are you doing back there?” _

Lucas blinked in surprise at the sound of Hopper’s low growl through the radio, every syllable threatening danger.

“Uh…” Lucas looked frantically around, silently imploring _anyone _else to take the radio from him. “We were just having a look around…”

_“Kid, you should _know _how dangerous it is to be back there!”_

El finally took pity on Lucas, offering her hand out to take the radio. Lucas shot her a relieved look, handing it over to her.

“We just wanted to help,” El said softly.

Some of the anger vanished from Hopper’s voice at the sound of El.

_“I know, kid, but there are things going on – _lots _of things going on. So just… just come back to Joyce’s, and I’ll explain everything, okay?”_

“But Hopper,” Mike snatched the radio out of El’s hand. “We _found _something; we _need _to check it out!”

_“No, what I _need _is for you kids to be _safe!_” _Hopper’s voice yelled down the radio. _“So for God’s sake, just come to the Byers’ place – no checking anything out, no investigating… You’re _kids, _Mike. I don’t want another one of you on my conscience.”_

-:-

“_Russians?_” Max echoed.

They were sat in the Byers’ living room. Night had completely descended, and Hopper had just finished explaining his theory on the recent break-ins.

“And you think that the _Russians _broke into Melvald’s?” Nancy followed up, looking equally confused. “Why the hell would _Russians _break into a convenience store?”

“To be fair, why would _Billy _break into a convenience store?” Robin followed up.

“Either way, the Russians have a hell of a lot more reason than Billy to break into the Harrington place,” Hopper said, running a hand through his hair.

“So… let’s just go over what we _know,_” Nancy brushed her hair out of her face. “Yesterday morning, Max gets a message through the lights from someone – or _something _– claiming to be Billy, saying that there are _Gates_. Then last night, two men dressed up like Russians break into Melvald’s and steal a load of cans and first aid supplies, along with some blankets, a lightbulb and a newspaper. They _then_ break into Steve’s parents’ place but don’t _take _anything. At _some _point in the relatively recent past, something Demogorgon-sized breaks out of Hawkins Lab and tears open a fence, but this evening, there was no magnetic disruption that would indicate a Gate. Have I missed anything?”

“No, I think you’ve pretty much summed it up,” Jonathan said.

“So let’s take this one thing at a time,” Robin cut in. “Looking at the break-ins, do you _really _think they were after a load of food and first aid supplies? If this _was _a secret Russian operation, they’d already _have _all that crap.”

“How would we know that?” Max asked.

“They were _pretty _well stocked the last time they ran a covert operation in Hawkins,” Dustin pointed out.

“So maybe they were looking for information?” Robin asked, looking at Hopper.

Hopper gave her a dark look. “Given that the last time the Russians were in town, Joyce was working in Melvald’s, it makes sense that they’d follow up on what Harrington told them.”

Hopper knew he was breaking _all _the rules by sharing details of an ongoing investigation with a roomful of teenagers, but after Paul Harrington’s ultimatum that afternoon, he found he didn’t much care.

“But then _why _take all that stuff?” Nancy asked. “To make it look like a random robbery?”

“Maybe,” Hopper said.

“So where does Billy fit in?” Max asked.

“Maybe the Mind Flayer is working with the Russians?” Lucas suggested. “You know, to conquer America or something.”

“Isn’t the point of the Mind Flayer to conquer the whole _world?_” Mike pointed out. “I don’t think it cares about Russians or Americans, I think it just wants to _destroy_.”

“We know it cares about _one _American,” Will muttered quietly.

The room fell silent as the weight of Will’s words settled over the room. Joyce’s eyes fell shut. Mike instinctively pushed himself closer on the floor towards El, who in turn felt a sense of unease creep up the back of her neck. Hopper turned away from the group of people sat around the living room while he pushed a hand up through his hair.

“_Jesus,_” he breathed.

“But how would they _know _about El?” Robin asked. “Steve didn’t tell them; I didn’t even know she _existed _until you guys explained all that shit to me.”

“If Billy’s working with the Russians, he _would _know about El,” Mike said. “Maybe he’s formed an unholy alliance with the Russians to try and use them to get to El?”

“But if he did _that, _then why _warn _me about it?” Max asked.

“Well, then we come back to the question about whether or not Billy is Flayed,” Nancy said. “If he _is _Flayed, then it’s a trap and we shouldn’t put too much faith in what he said. If he _isn’t _Flayed-”

“Why would he not be Flayed?” Hopper asked.

“The Mind Flayer might not have needed him after we closed the Gate last summer,” Will explained.

“_Or,_” Robin suggested. “Now that we know the _Russians _are involved, they may have found him and gotten it out of-”

She broke off, a light coming into her eyes as a realisation dawned on her.

“Maybe that’s what he means…” she breathed.

She was met with blank looks from around the room.

“_What _is what he means?” Max was the first to break the silence.

Robin looked around the room, chasing the train of thought. _The Russians were back – the Gate was open – Billy had said there were Gates –_

“The other Gate,” Robin said. “It’s not anywhere _here. _It’s in _Russia_.”

There was a beat of silence, before –

“That’s not possible,” Hopper said.

“Isn’t it?” Robin asked incredulously. “We’re dealing with _another fricking dimension _here. Who’s to say that they couldn’t open a Gate in Russia-”

“Because they _tried,_” Joyce said quietly. “Alexei – he said they _tried _to open a Gate in Russia, but they couldn’t, so they came to Hawkins, where the last Gate was still healing.”

“But they were doing _something _with the Gate here,” Dustin pointed out. “What if, having opened _one _Gate, they found a way to open another one in Russia?”

“So they open a Gate here – _why?_” Nancy asked. “To find El?”

“Exactly,” Dustin said. “At some point, they start working with the Mind Flayer, so a couple of Russians come here and open a Gate in Hawkins Lab, let a Demogorgon through as – I don’t know – an advance guard, and then close the Gate again, safe in the knowledge that the Demogorgon won’t die because there’s still a Gate open in Russia.”

“It would explain why we couldn’t find anything with your compass,” Lucas said.

“And Billy,” Max said softly. “He knows about it, so he tries to warn me.”

“Or set a trap,” Mike muttered.

“But why would they close the Gate?” Jonathan asked. “If they want to destroy El, why would they close the Gate after only letting a Demogorgon through?”

“Maybe they wanted to close the Gate to keep a low profile,” Dustin suggested.

“Yeah, they’ve done a _bang-up _job of that,” Hopper snapped. “Two break-ins in one day. That’s a _really _low profile right there.”

“Yeah, that’s another thing,” Nancy said. “If they came here to let the Demogorgon through, why break into Melvald’s and Steve’s parents’ place?”

Joyce suddenly snapped her head up, suddenly remembering something. “Hop, the paper!”

Every head snapped towards her as she jumped up, hands flying over the surfaces as she tried to find –

“Hop!” she called as she suddenly extracted a copy of the paper from the day before out from underneath a coffee mug on a side table. It was folded on a page with puzzles, a half-finished crossword abandoned. She folded it over to its front page, a triumphant smile spreading across her face as she showed the room the headline of the Hawkins Post from the day before.

_COMMISSIONER APPROVES HARRINGTON’S POLICE REFORM_

“Oh shit,” Robin breathed.

“Hop, they stopped to look at the paper,” Joyce said. “You saw in the footage; you _saw _that they spent time looking at it. And then, a matter of _hours _later, they break into the Harrington place.”

“They’d know the name _‘Harrington’_,” Robin breathed. “The Russians – they’d recognise it.”

“Particularly if Billy’s with them,” Dustin said.

“So the Russians,” Nancy said, her voice determinedly piecing everything together. “They come to Hawkins, they open a Gate to bring a Demogorgon and possibly Billy into Hawkins. Having done that, they then start trying to track down El using the information that Steve and Robin and possibly Billy gave them. When the last-known workplace of Joyce Byers is a bust, they spot Steve’s surname on the paper and break into his house, only to get interrupted.”

She paused, looking around the room, thinking hard.

“We still don’t have the whole picture,” she finally continued. “We need to see what, if anything, is in the Lab. We need to find Billy-”

Hopper gave a bitter and sarcastic laugh. “No,” he said firmly, giving her a humourless grin.

“_What?_” she shot to her feet.

“Nancy…” Jonathan began.

“We _need _to keep looking! If Billy’s still out there, we _need _to find him-”

“_We _don’t need to do anything,” Hopper felt his voice rising in volume as he gestured around the room towards all the kids. He gestured between himself and Joyce as he next spoke. “_We_ will handle this from here. _You _are going to go home, you’re going to go to school tomorrow, you’re going to keep your eyes out for anything out of the ordinary, and above all, you’re going to keep yourselves _safe._ I’ve already lost _one _of you kids to attempted heroics, I’m _not _losing anyone else.”

This drew protests from just about everyone under the age of eighteen. Variations on a theme of _‘what if we can help’_ clamoured over each other in a distorted fugue as Hopper’s eyes found Robin, who was the only person still seated, her hand wrapped around the handle of the nail bat as she looked at him with fear in her blue eyes.

“_Enough!_” Hopper roared. “This is not a debate. There are Russians out there, and there’s possibly a fully grown one of those _things _out there. So no going off on your own. Make sure you get rides if you’re going to and from school. Don’t go monster hunting, don’t go tracking down Russians, just stay _safe._”

“So _what?_ You and Mrs Byers are going to go hunting down Billy and the Russians on your own?” Nancy snapped.

“As it happens, no,” Hopper growled, wondering where on Earth the Wheelers got their stubborn refusal to obey sensible instructions, because it seemed to be genetic, despite the fact that Ted Wheeler had all the backbone of a slug. “I’ve already called Sam Owens, he’s going to help when he arrives tomorrow morning. But even if that _wasn’t _happening, you’re a seventeen-year-old kid. You’re still in high school. And here’s a reality check: it’s not your _job _to be a hero.”

Nancy still looked mutinous as she glared at Hopper. Hopper softened his gaze slightly, the words Paul Harrington had thrown at him at their first meeting ringing in his ears as he tried to force some meaning into them.

“I know you want to help,” Hopper continued, dropping his voice. “But the best way you can help is by looking out for each other. Keep an eye out for anything unusual, and _trust us _to handle this.”

Nancy didn’t look remotely satisfied by Hopper’s plea, but it was Max who broke the silence first, her voice fearful.

“What are you going to do if you find Billy?” she asked quietly.

Hopper felt an emotion he couldn’t name well up in the pit of his stomach at Max’s words. On the one hand, he felt a lot of sympathy for her; she’d been dealing with the loss of her stepbrother for months, watching as it tore apart her family and her home in ways that it never should have been torn apart. On the _other _hand, Hopper had not known anger and betrayal like he’d felt at the news that Max had been using El to find Billy behind all their backs. There was a reason he’d actively sought to keep El away from her.

Still, one way or another, despite everything that Billy Hargrove had been before that monster had sunk its claws into him, he was a victim of this monster. If there was a chance to save him, he’d take it.

“We’ll see if he’s Flayed,” Hopper said. “And if he is, we’ll see if we can get him back.”

-:-

Mike wasn’t entirely sure why he was standing outside his sister’s bedroom door a little before midnight, but here he was.

Everyone had made the collective choice to go back to their own houses, offering what lifts they could to the people that they could. Robin had taken Dustin and Max home, and by all accounts had achieved the miracle of seeing them into their houses unscathed no reports of volatile outbursts between the two of them. Jonathan had stayed with Will at his mom’s, while El had gone back with Hopper, leaving Nancy to take Mike and Lucas home.

Mike had been struggling to sleep. He’d spent the best part of an hour after Nancy had explained that they’d had dinner with the Byers’ tossing and turning in his sheets, trying and failing to rid his mind of the events of the day.

When that had failed, he’d found himself walking the short distance in the hallway outside between his room and Nancy’s, trying to decide whether or not to knock on the door. This was his fourth time outside Nancy’s door, his second time with his fist raised –

He unfolded his fist, shaking his hand frantically as he turned away. He started walking back towards his room –

“Mike?”

He turned to see Nancy’s door open, Nancy standing there looking at him with extreme confusion.

“Nancy,” he said. “I was just – uh – going to the bathroom…”

She raised a single, sceptical eyebrow at him. “Four times in the last ten minutes?”

“Uh…”

She flicked her head over her shoulder, gesturing inside her room as she went back in and turned the light on.

“Come in, close the door, keep your voice down,” she said quietly.

Mike stood for a moment in the hallway before following her into her room. The warm yellow glow of her bedside lamp lit up her face, her hair that hadn’t been cut in months hanging down over her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” Nancy asked as he closed the door, standing in front of it awkwardly.

Mike didn’t have an answer to that. There was _so much _that was wrong, but he couldn’t explain, even to himself, which part of it was causing him a complete inability to sleep.

“Some day,” he finally managed.

Nancy gave a small chuckle at that. “Yeah,” she said, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “Some day.”

“It’s not fair,” he muttered. “It’s not fair that this keeps coming back.”

Nancy shook her head. “No, it’s not,” she breathed.

“Haven’t we earned a break?” Mike looked at Nancy with a pained expression in his eyes. “Hasn’t _she _earned a break? Why can’t this thing just leave her alone?”

Nancy gave him a sympathetic, understanding look. “Mike, I know…” she breathed. “It’s _not _fair, it’s not _right._ If anyone deserves a normal life, it’s her, but… as unfair as it is, she’s not normal. And we _always _knew that this thing was going to come back someday. From the second they released that Colonel, we knew that the Russians were going to try to open the Gate again. But we’ve got a head start on it this time. We _know _what’s out there-”

“Yeah, and we can’t _do _anything about it!” Mike snapped vehemently. “Hopper won’t let us do _anything_, he just wants us to go to school and come home-”

“He wants to keep us safe,” Nancy said softly. “I don’t like it either, but he’s right about how we need to look out for each other.”

“I’ve never…” Mike ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve never had to just… _not do anything. _It doesn’t feel right. I mean – those guys are out there _looking _for her! They’re looking for her _right now, _and the _last _time she went up against a fully grown Demogorgon-”

He broke off, a lump forming in his throat. He closed his eyes against the memory of staring at the blackboard, the light swallowing up her and the Demogorgon alike, leaving nothing behind but a memory and what felt like a hole blasted open in his chest. Nancy put a hand on his arm gently.

“I know how much you care about her,” she murmured. “But she’s a hell of a lot stronger now than she was back then. She’s a lot more in control of herself. And you need to trust her to know what she’s doing. _That’s_ your problem, that’s _always _been your problem with her.”

Mike frowned at her, confused.

“Think about it, Mike,” Nancy said. “All your problems before Starcourt happened were because you didn’t trust her with her own powers. Then Starcourt put that into perspective, and you started to trust her again. But because you didn’t trust her before, _she _didn’t trust _you _enough to tell you what she was doing with Max, which was because she thought – probably correctly – that you’d stop her. And yes, she probably shouldn’t have done what she did, but she really thought it was the only way to get Billy back. And the big problem there wasn’t what she was doing, it was that she didn’t _tell _you about it. Which was exactly the same problem Lucas had with Max. You didn’t trust her, and she didn’t trust you to trust her. _That’s_ why things went wrong between you. You smothered her, and the second you stopped, you let her become her own person, and you didn’t like that.”

“That’s… not what _happened…_”

Nancy raised her sceptical eyebrow again. “Mike,” she gave a small chuckle. “It’s _exactly _what happened. There’s a _reason _it took you months to realise it was over. She worked out who she was without you, and you worked out who you were without her. And when you realised that you were perfectly capable of being two individuals, you thought that _that _meant that you had to break up with her.”

“Nancy, that’s _bullshit-_”

“Language, Mike.”

“Like _you’ve _never said worse,” Mike shot back. “And I broke up with her because it felt… _different _after we’d been on a break for so long. It was like… I didn’t _need _to go back to doing all those things, like dancing with her at the Christmas dance-”

“Mike, it’s not about _needing _to do those things,” Nancy laughed. “You think I _need _to have film nights with Jonathan where he makes me watch Citizen Kane and explain all the subtle nuances of how they composed each shot? I don’t always feel like I _want _to do those things, but when I’m _doing _them, when I see how excited and passionate he gets about it… It reminds me of why I love him.”

“_God,_ Nancy, that’s-”

“Grow up, Michael,” she rolled her eyes at him as she cut him off before he could say exactly what it was. “My _point _is that that’s what a relationship _is._ It’s not always dancing with the love of your life in the moonlight, it’s not always golden moments of kissing to terrible music. Sometimes there’s some shit that comes your way. And at the heart of it, you need to find that you can trust each other. And trust the other person to trust _you._”

-:-

Steve gave the radio a dubious look as Billy shone the flashlight over it.

“That doesn’t look like you’re going to be able to fix it…” he muttered, looking over at Billy.

Billy prodded the small metal disc that was hanging by a wire.

“Yeah, as a two-way radio, this is bust,” Billy said. “That’s the microphone, and we don’t have any of what we need to fix it. But we might still be able to pick up signals.”

“Okay,” Steve looked between Billy and the radio. “How are we going to do that?”

Billy looked at Steve with a certain amount of defensiveness. “Do I _look _like an expert on fixing radios?”

“You managed to build an electromagnet in a Russian base.”

“Yeah, quite a _well-stocked _Russian base where I had _instructions,_” Billy pointed out.

“Well, why don’t we just put the batteries in and see what happens?” Steve suggested, grabbing the pack of batteries from Billy.

“There’s about a million ways that could go wrong,” Billy deadpanned.

“Well, we won’t _know _which way it’ll go wrong until we try it, and then we might be a little closer to working out how this thing is broken.”

Billy gave Steve an incredulous look, any arguments he had dying in his throat as he opened and closed his mouth entirely ineffectively in the face of bull-headed logic that only seemed to make sense to Steve. Steve, meanwhile, promptly opened up the pack of AA batteries and took out eight, fitting them into the back of the radio.

“If it blows up, I’m blaming you,” Billy muttered.

“You _know _that’s not a thing, right?” Steve asked cockily.

“Do _you?_” Billy started.

Steve shrugged before flicking the switch. A splutter of white noise came out, intermittent stutters of sound that didn’t settle long enough for them to be able to hear anything beyond the white noise – if there was, indeed, anything else to be heard. Steve gave the radio a highly scientific and sophisticated shake, and the noise coming from the radio died altogether.

“Oh, _well done,_” Billy snapped, snatching the radio from Steve.

“Like _you’ve _never shaken something to get it to work when it’s sounding like that.”

“Not when it looks like _this!_” Billy gestured to the missing panel and dangling components. “You’re a shit mechanic, Harrington, I hope you know that.”

“I never pretended to _be _a mechanic!” Steve exclaimed, his voice shooting up several octaves in indignation.

Billy had to smirk at the high-pitched squeak that Steve let out as he rolled his eyes. “Just – just go and get me the first aid kit.”

Steve huffed indignantly as he got up. “It’s a _radio, _Billy. I don’t think sticking a band-aid on it and kissing it better is going to work quite as well on it as it does on five-year-olds.”

“Just you watch me,” Billy grinned as Steve handed him the bundle of items that constituted their first aid kit. He searched among the bundle of items before finally pulling out the tweezers. He used them to carefully lift the motherboard out of the casing, slipping the flashlight in between his teeth. Steve crouched down again, offering to take the flashlight with an outstretched palm. Billy nodded, letting Steve take it.

“Grab the casing, will you?” Billy instructed. “Hold it so the wires don’t get pulled away from the circuit board.”

Steve proved himself slightly better at taking instructions than at executing his own plans, holding the casing aloft while Billy lifted the circuit board up to his eyes, peering at the gap between the casing and the components.

“Get the light in there, will you?” Billy said, gesturing at the gap. “Preferably without shining it directly into my eyes.”

Steve did so, holding the light up next to Billy’s head with one hand with the other still on the plastic casing. Billy gently teased the tweezers underneath the circuit board, prodding at the plastic casing around each of the wires until –

Steve almost dropped the flashlight in shock as the speaker burst into life, white noise bursting out of it for the split second that Billy had touched the wire.

“_Jesus…_” Steve gasped. “That almost gave me a heart attack.”

Billy, by contrast, had a triumphant grin on his face.

“Well, at least we know what’s wrong with it,” Billy grinned at Steve. “A wire’s coming loose, or it’s frayed or something. It’s not _completely_ broken yet, but maybe don’t _shake _it again.”

Steve gave Billy a sheepish smile. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s fine,” Billy sounded significantly more cheerful now that he had a handle on what was wrong. “Just hold the casing still.”

Steve nodded as Billy carefully lowered the circuit board back into the plastic casing, nudging it back into place with the tweezers before putting it down on the floor.

“Well, I don’t know how we’re going to fix it, but at least we know what’s wrong,” Billy summarised. “But it’s late, and it’s been a long day, so I don’t know about you, but I might try and get some sleep and work that out in the morning.”

Steve shrugged. “Seems like a good idea.”

Billy raised an eyebrow at him. “Are _you _going to try and get some sleep?”

Steve didn’t answer, but the way he avoided Billy’s eyes told Billy everything he needed to know. He was staring at the radio, instead, his mind racing. The idea of hearing that radio burst into life, of hearing his friends’ voices – friends he’d thought he’d never see again – friends he didn’t know if he could _bear_ to see again – was sending his imagination into overdrive. The day had been so completely overwhelming, from breaking into his house, seeing his empty bedroom, seeing his _mom_ with such fear in her eyes…

“Steve, seriously, you need to sleep,” Billy said, seeming to read his mind. “It’s been one hell of a day-”

“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Steve asked vacantly, still staring at the radio.

Billy frowned at him. “What?”

“The others,” Steve elaborated. “What do you think they’re doing?”

Billy watched Steve carefully as Steve didn’t take his eyes off the radio. “Well, if they’ve got half a brain cell, they’ll be sleeping,” he said, allowing only a hint of humour into his voice while otherwise keeping his tone determinedly neutral.

Steve swallowed, his voice feeling thick as he finally looked over at Billy.

“Do you think much has changed?” Steve asked, surprised by how steady his voice was. “With _them, _I mean. Do you think they’re still the same people they’ve always been?”

“You mean, do I think Max is still the same annoying little shit sneaking off to meet Sinclair every five minutes?” Billy found himself snorting with laughter. “Probably.”

The joke had the effect of drawing a smile out of Steve, the lump in his throat easing slightly.

“You know, Lucas is a good kid,” Steve said. “Sure, he’s a bit of an idiot, but he’s a good kid at heart.”

Billy didn’t look at Steve, his eyes still on the house. “I know,” he said softly. “She wouldn’t have stuck with him if he wasn’t. She’s an arrogant little shit, but that means that she doesn’t stick around people who aren’t worth her time.”

Steve’s smile warmed. “So _not _the worst thing to ever happen to your sister, then?”

Billy laughed. “She’s not exactly my sister-”

He broke off at Steve’s raised eyebrows, the grin getting almost cocky.

“No,” Billy said, looking down at his hands. “He’s not.”

Billy wrapped his hands in and around each other, twisting his fingers together.

“Have I ever apologised to you for that night?” Billy suddenly asked.

The smile dropped from Steve’s face to be replaced by a look of complete confusion, before understanding smoothed his features out.

“Oh – uh… _probably,_” Steve shrugged. “Honestly, so much has happened since then, it really doesn’t matter to me anymore.”

“It matters to _me,_” Billy muttered. “I _never_ should have lost it like that at you. Or Sinclair, for that matter. I don’t… I’d just had a fight with my dad about looking out for Maxine – it’s not an _excuse, _but it’s the _reason _I lost it – I’d spent _days _trying to talk Max out of hanging around with him – _God, _I don’t even remember _why_, but from the second I saw him, I thought he was a piece of shit who was going to _hurt _her, and I wanted to _look_ _out _for her… And then _you _came along, trying to tell me to go without her, and I just-”

Billy ran a hand through his hair, brushing the curl out of his face.

“It’s _not _an excuse,” Billy repeated vehemently. “There _isn’t _an excuse, but I just feel that I owe you an explanation. I honestly thought I was looking out for Max, but I should never have gone after you – _either _of you – like I did. I’m sorry.”

Steve let out a long sigh. “I know,” he said at last. “But you’re not that person anymore. If you showed the asshole who knocked me out on the Byers’ living room floor the person you are today, I think he’d have a fucking heart attack.”

Billy gave a snort of laughter. “The hair would _shock _him, I’m sure.”

Steve laughed. “The loss of the tan, too,” he joked. “Seriously, Hargrove, you’re _pale. _But more than that, you’re a _good person. _I’ve spent most of the last eight months – or _however _long you’ve been yourself – watching how good a person you could become. And I’ll be honest, it’s really fucking surprising given that we spent a good deal of time surrounded entirely by things that wanted to kill us. You stuck around, helping me get through the days when I couldn’t even _talk _in Russia. You _repeatedly _put your life on the line to try and do the right thing. You were prepared to risk your life to help _me _do the right thing and screw up the Russian invasion, because you could see I was going to get myself killed if I didn’t. You’re the _reason _we made it out alive – the reason _I _made it out alive.”

Billy shrugged. “What can I say?” he grinned. “Your knight-in-shining-armour routine rubbed off on me.”

Steve gave him a withering look. “Billy, I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” Billy said. “For all that you say I was prepared to risk my life or whatever, you were right there risking your life alongside me. You gave up _everything _to keep me alive – I watched you do it. _I’m _not the reason we got out of there alive, _you _are.”

The barest flicker of disagreement flashed across Steve’s face as he thought about arguing the point, but he settled instead for:

“Billy, I’d do it all again for you,” he said, looking into the blue eyes, illuminated only by the weak bulb. “I love you.”

The words died in Billy’s throat. His mouth felt dry as the words danced on the tip of Billy’s tongue –

“You don’t have to say it back,” Steve said, turning his head away with a slightly embarrassed look. Billy felt the reprieve wash over him, relief swallowing the words that had threatened to fall out of his mouth before he could catch them in a wave that broke in his throat.

“Steve-”

“It’s okay,” Steve looked at him again with a very genuine, understanding smile. “_Really, _it’s okay, Billy. After what happened with Nancy, I want you to _know_ that you mean it. If you need some time to be sure, I can wait.”

Billy was left with a thousand unsaid words dancing on his tongue as Steve kissed his cheek, gently stretching out his legs and pulling one of the blankets around him. Billy closed his mouth as a hand worked its way into his hair, gently easing his head down into Steve’s lap as fingers ran their way into soft circles that massaged his head. A blanket was thrown over Billy’s shoulders as he found his brain short-circuiting, the hand gently stroking through his hair as his eyes drifted shut in one of the most comfortable states he’d been in for months.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about our other conversation,” Billy mumbled. “You still need to sleep.”

“I’ll be fine, Billy,” he heard Steve breathe. “Don’t worry about me.”

-:-

Hopper pulled the Cruiser up outside the military hospital on the outskirts of Hawkins to find Sam Owens already waiting for him outside.

It was still dark. The limited hours of sleep that Hopper had snatched from the jaws of his anxiety were not nearly enough to make him feel better about the day he had ahead of him. Russians were one thing – _one thing too many_ – but did they _really _need the Gate on top of it as well?

His annoyance mounted as he saw Sam smiling at him. His feelings towards the man were hardly the best – he’d known ever since Sam had told him that the government was planning to release Colonel Ozerov that the Russians would try and come back eventually, and a small part of him, however petty, blamed Sam for failing to prevent it.

“Chief-o!” Sam said, grinning at him with a smile that didn’t touch the concern in his eyes as he climbed into the car next to Hopper.

“Doc,” Hopper said in a passable attempt at keeping his voice neutral. He wasn’t about to try _too _hard, though.

“_That_ happy with me, huh?” Sam said with a failed attempt at levity.

Hopper didn’t bother answering as he pulled the car away out of the hospital parking lot. The comment fell flat as Owens found the sense to stop trying to force conversation to happen, letting Hopper drive him away and down the winding road.

“Do I get to know where we’re going, or am I going to have to guess?” Sam finally asked as the sun started to break over the horizon.

“Your old place of work,” Hopper grunted.

Sam gave him an alarmed look. “Are you serious?”

Hopper nodded. “You’re going to help me see if there’s anything strange going on there.”

Sam nodded, his eyes never leaving the scowl on Hopper’s face.

“I’ve got to say, Chief, you were pretty vague on the phone,” Sam said. “I’d love to help you, but I’m a bit in the dark as to what’s going on here. You said something about a couple of Russians terrorizing the town-”

“Do you know where Billy Hargrove is right now?” Hopper cut across him.

Sam gave him a long, searching look. “Jim, it’s pretty hard to track a man in another dimension-”

“He’s resurfaced,” Hopper said. “Made contact with his stepsister two days ago. Less than twenty-four hours later, two guys dressed exactly like that Russian mercenary who tried to kill me break into a convenience store.”

Sam had the sense to stay silent at that revelation. He didn’t need Hopper to fill in the blanks.

“So we’re going to Hawkins Lab because it’s where the first Gate was-”

“We’re going to Hawkins Lab because the kids went there yesterday and found that _something _had got out,” Hopper said. “We should count ourselves lucky that I got them to back off before they tried anything, because we might have found ourselves looking at another Starcourt situation again.”

The alarm on Sam’s face grew at that. “Are you telling me that one of those _things _is loose?”

“I don’t _know_, Doc, there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense about this!” Hopper’s voice rose to a shout. “The kids went yesterday to the Lab, but they don’t think there’s a Gate open because of something to do with compasses not getting disrupted. We _think _Billy’s back in town, because he spoke to his stepsister through the lights, but we don’t _know _whether he’s on this side of the Gate or not, or whether he’s still under that _thing’s _control.”

“What _do _you know?” Sam asked. “What exactly _are _we dealing with here?”

Hopper started to explain everything. He ran through the break-ins, he talked through the message that Max had gotten, he went over the kids discovering the tear in the fence at Hawkins Lab. He talked Sam through the theories that they’d come up with, from the Gate closing to the possibility of another Gate in Russia. When he was done, he was left with a ringing silence in the car.

“You should have called me sooner,” Sam finally managed.

“I called you the _second _I realised the Russian link,” Hopper snapped. “How much sooner did you want to be called?”

Sam conceded the point. “So… we’re going to Hawkins Lab hoping to find Russians, Billy Hargrove – who may or may not still be under the control of an interdimensional monster – and quite possibly one or more of those monsters?”

“We’re going to Hawkins Lab to find _answers,_” Hopper said firmly. “The Lab seems to be the best place to find them.”

Hopper finally pulled the car over to a lay-by in the side of the road. Sam looked around, confused.

“This isn’t the Lab,” he pointed out as Hopper got out of the car and opened up the trunk.

Hopper looked over as Sam got out of the car to follow him.

“No,” Hopper replied. “The Lab’s about a quarter mile through the trees. But I have no idea what we’re going to find in the Lab, and I figure if Hargrove _is _there, I’d rather not alert him to the fact that we’re _also _there by having my car parked out front.

Sam walked around the side of the car before his jaw dropped at the sight of what was in the trunk. Hopper pulled out an assault rifle, slinging the strap around his shoulder before handing a second one to Sam.

“Do you know how to use this?” Hopper asked.

“Uh – _yeah, _but Jim – doesn’t this feel a bit-”

“We’re going in to have a look around,” Hopper said. “There may be something to find, there may not be. We’re going in to see if there _is _anything to find. _This-_” Hopper pressed the rifle into Sam’s hands, “-is a precaution in case what we find is more than we can handle. If we walk in there and find the place crawling with Russians or those _things_, we get out. You call in the National Guard or whoever it is you call.”

“_Or _you could take me to a phone, and I could just call them _now,_” Sam said. “I can have them here in less than an hour.”

Hopper gave him an unreadable look. “Doc, part of what I want is to _not _tip off any Russians that may be running around that we know they’re involved yet. If they know, they start being a hell of a lot more careful. And that means they’ll go to ground. If we’re dealing with, say, two or three Russians and we send in an army of soldiers, they’ll get spooked. They’ll go to ground, and we’ll never find them.”

“So we’re going on a reconnaissance mission?” Sam raised an eyebrow as he mimicked Hopper, slinging the strap over his shoulder.

“Exactly,” Hopper said, pressing a Smith and Wesson handgun against Sam’s chest. “We’re working out what we’re up against.”

Hopper pushed the trunk shut, locking the car and pocketing the keys as he started to trek into the forest. Sam followed him, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the fact that he had two guns on him when he was used to carrying zero. He knew how to use them – when he’d taken over running Hawkins Lab, he’d been given basic firearms training for reasons that had only become apparent in November 1984 – but that was beside the point. He _wasn’t _a soldier, he felt woefully unprepared for what they might come up against.

“If we _do _find anything,” Sam started, “we’re getting straight out of there, right?”

“Right,” Hopper said.

Sam gave a small laugh in a brave attempt at humour. “_Good, _because I’m less than useless in a fight.”

“No shit, Doc,” Hopper muttered.

Sam conceded that point, not missing the deliberate bite in Hopper’s tone.

“You’re mad at me.”

It wasn’t a question. Hopper glanced over at Sam before turning back towards the forest.

“What gave it away?” Hopper asked sarcastically.

“I know what your problem with me is,” Sam said. “But it wasn’t my call to let Colonel Ozerov go.”

“Oh yeah?” Hopper’s voice was dubious. “Whose call _was _it, then?”

“It ended up being the President’s,” Sam shrugged.

Hopper glared at Sam. “You tell him about the whole _‘trying to bring about the end of the world’ _thing that Colonel was doing?”

Sam gave a bitter laugh. “I wasn’t in the room when he made the call, funnily enough,” he said. “I fought – _really bloody hard, _I might add – to keep Ozerov in our custody. I ended up nearly losing my _job _over it before I backed down.”

“Really?” Hopper asked dryly. “And your _job _is worth more than the safety of those kids?”

“My job _is _the safety of those kids, Jim,” Sam said calmly. “If you want someone else who doesn’t know the score in my position, be my guest. Keep Jane a secret from _them._”

“Oh, _I _get it, I get it,” Hopper’s brow furrowed. “You’re the _lesser _of two evils.”

Sam frowned, stung by the comment. “I’m not _evil, _Jim. I let that girl of yours go for the same reasons that you took her in and hid her from us.”

“Oh, so _‘evil’ _just encompasses child-torturing psychopaths?” Hopper laughed bitterly. “What about the people who show up five minutes later to use the situation to further their own career?”

“What’s _that _supposed to mean, Chief?” the first hint of annoyance creeping into that determinedly cheery tone that Sam worked so hard to keep.

Hopper said nothing for a moment. He slowed slightly, looking through the trees as he struggled to find the words. His jaw was working hard in his mouth, chewing on nothing as he thought…

“You did a damn good job of running that Lab into the ground,” Hopper said. “I told you I’d keep things off your back while you got your house in order, but you didn’t. You didn’t _listen _to Will Byers when he told you about his episodes. You didn’t take the spread of those fucking _vines _seriously enough. You leveraged yourself into a position that overwhelmed you. You _never _should have been the one in charge of that place. But the next time I see you, you’re running some kind of _military unit _designed to deal with this shit. A military unit that was slow enough to respond that one of those kids _died._”

“Jim, I’m _not _responsible for Starcourt-”

“_No_, you just let the bastard who _was _go free!” Hopper snapped. “You didn’t even _try _to look for Billy Hargrove, instead sending _me _off to go tell his family that he was _dead._ His _stepsister_ did more to look for him than _you _did – and _God _knows I don’t agree with her methods. And now, he’s back. They’re _both _back.”

“You don’t know that, Jim-”

“I know this whole _situation _could have been completely avoided if you’d just _done your fucking job!_” Hopper snarled.

Sam took a step back, startled. Hopper turned on his heel and started trudging through the undergrowth again. Sam started to follow, trying to catch his breath.

“Okay,” Sam asked, genial tone back in place. “How?”

It was a simple enough question, expressed in a simple enough tone, but it sounded rhetorical to Hopper’s ears. He huffed, not bothering to answer.

“I’m seriously asking here, Chief, _how?_” Sam gave a small laugh. “You wanted me to find Hargrove – _how, _exactly? Would you have had me open up one of those _Gates?_ Send in _search parties _after him? And Ozerov – would you have liked me to _kidnap _the guy? We’re talking about an order from the _President _here. Sure, I could have fought harder, lost my job in a noble self-sacrificial way like _you _seem to be determined to do, and the President would still have released Ozerov, and all that would be different would be that you’d be talking to a stranger instead of me.”

“_Jesus, _you sound like a _politician,_” Hopper huffed. “I guess I shouldn’t _really _be surprised, because that’s what you _are_, really, deep down, just another _politician _twisting bad situations around to suit his own personal interests rather than actually showing the competence to _do _something about them; the only difference is that you wear a white coat rather than a suit and tie.”

Sam levelled him with an unreadable look. “Is that really what you think of me?”

Once again, Hopper didn’t bother answering.

“Fine,” Sam said gently. “But I’m all you’ve got, so you’re stuck with me.”

They’d made it to the edge of the trees. The tear in the fence was prominent, but otherwise, the building was quiet. Hopper pulled out the small compass he’d taken to keeping on him, watching the needle swing around towards –

North. Not the Lab. The kids had been right about that.

Hopper pressed a finger to his lips before motioning for Sam to follow him. Sam had the decency to keep up, staying quiet as Hopper pushed his way through the pre-made gap in the fence. Hopper remembered – far too acutely – that there were cameras covering every inch of the Lab and its grounds, but he could only hope that there was nobody to hack into the system.

They made it to the door with no sign of trouble. Nobody came out to greet them, nothing ominous growled from beyond the doors. Hopper noticed the lock on the chain around the doors was broken – it didn’t even look like it had been replaced from the last time he’d broken into the Lab to check it out.

“Your security here is shit, Doc,” he muttered to Sam as he opened the door. Sam merely raised an eyebrow before following Hopper inside.

Hopper kept the assault rifle raised as he slipped into the entrance hall. There didn’t appear to be any sign of – well, _anyone. _The hallways appeared deserted, silence only broken by the sound of his own breathing, desperately stifled as he moved through the hallways.

He tried not to feel the oppressive weight of the last time he’d moved through these halls with a gun held ready, Will Byers’ unconscious form thrown over his shoulder as he ushered Mike and Joyce out. He’d come back here since, Joyce paranoid beyond sense about _magnets _of all things, getting it into her head that the Gate was open. He’d learnt his lesson about writing her paranoia off after that.

“Jim,” Sam whispered behind him as he turned down the most efficient route towards the room where the Gate had first been opened.

Hopper wheeled around at the sound of his name. Sam was pointing down another corridor that Hopper hadn’t spared more than a passing glance down. He paused, backtracking before –

_That wasn’t what he’d been expecting._

The doorway at the far end of the corridor was little more than a wooden frame, but that wasn’t what struck them about what they were looking at. The wooden frame was black and burnt, soot painting the walls around it in an artistic pattern. Hopper found himself walking down the corridor towards it, his heart pounding as he approached it.

The doorway had once been a door, but all that was left of the door was a charred frame and a burnt-out lump of wood that had fallen off its hinges. If the door had possessed ambitions of being a fire door, it had certainly died achieving its dream, because that was all that was burnt in the corridor. The fire hadn’t lapped up to catch on the cladding in the ceiling by some small mercy, and the floor hadn’t caught light either. The fact that they were dealing with a shell of a building certainly helped, the fire-retardant concrete proving utterly ineffective at fuelling the flames.

“Chief,” Sam said, stepping over the door and into the room. His voice sounded strange, a hint of fear creeping into it. “Take a look at this.”

Hopper looked up from the burnt husk of what had once been a door and stepped into the room after Sam, his jaw dropping slightly at the sight.

Huge claw marks had savaged the walls, powerful claws that had carved gouges into concrete with the same effectiveness as they had shredded the fence like paper. The room, despite being the same shell of a room as every other part of the Lab was, still had the quality of being completely trashed, as the walls, floor and ceiling had been torn apart.

There was another door into the room, also burnt. Neither door showed any sign of having had any attempt to extinguish the fire. There was no water on the floor, nothing to show a fire extinguisher had been used.

“Well, there goes your theory about the Russians being in league with those monsters,” Sam tried for a smile.

Hopper shot him a blank look.

“Whoever did this was trying to _trap _that thing, not _use _it,” Sam pointed out. “You know as well as I do that fire is one of the only things that stops them. They burnt the doors to trap that thing in here. Left with no way out, the thing tried to claw its way through the concrete.”

Hopper looked around the room, his brow furrowing.

“That doesn’t mean that the Russians aren’t using the monsters,” Hopper murmured. “Let’s go.”

Sam didn’t say anything at the abrupt change of subject, instead following Hopper down the hallway as Hopper led the way to the room that Sam had hoped never to set foot in again. He felt his heart thud in his chest as Sam remembered sprinting away from the room, monsters that had no place in a decent world tearing apart his friends and colleagues more effectively than they themselves had been torn from nightmares.

Hopper finally pushed open the door, gun held aloft, before stopping short at the sight that met him. He felt nausea rising in his chest as he stepped into the room, hearing Sam follow behind him, equally transfixed on the sight before him.

“Oh my God,” Sam breathed.

The wall that Hopper had run a hand over less than a year ago reassuringly to feel the solid concrete that he’d _watched _being poured was cracked once again. The floor was cracked, too, a gaping hole that split down into the abyss as the crack in the wall stretched down into the floor below. A glance upwards told Hopper that the crack didn’t stop on this floor, a similar crevice carved into the ceiling, and into the ceiling above that, and the ceiling above _that_, the crack seemingly stretching up as far as it could go.

The only mercy about it was that the crack in the wall looked just like any other crack in the wall. There was no red glow pulsating beyond it, there were no vines stretching out, there were no white flakes dotting the air…

The Gate _had been _here. It was simply closed.

Theories shot around his head, overlapping each other as the new information contradicted the old ideas, Hopper’s brain overwhelmed as he struggled to fit the revelations into what he knew already.

“Jim,” Sam breathed. “What the _hell_ is going on?”

Hopper gaped at the closed Gate. “I have no idea,” he finally breathed.

There was nothing else in the room. There was no sign of any machine that could have opened – or _reopened _the Gate.

“We should check the other floors,” Sam finally broke the silence. “Maybe we’ll find something there.”

Hopper nodded, letting Sam take the lead as he walked towards a flight of stairs. Sam opened the door, holding it open for Hopper as he looked back to check he was following –

“Wait,” Hopper suddenly stopped. “What’s that?”

He pointed to a mark on the door. A dark smear on the door handle. Hopper crouched down, looking at it closely –

_Blood._

“Someone was hurt,” Hopper said. “I’m guessing the same someone who trapped that _thing_ in the room.”

Sam pushed away from the door, letting Hopper lead the way down the stairs. Hopper stopped at the landing, his eyes drawn to the metal railings that formed a bannister where another dark smear stood out.

“So they came up the stairs and through the door,” Hopper said.

“How do you know they came _up?_” Sam asked.

Hopper gave him a withering look. “The blood is on _this _side of the door,” he pointed out.

Comprehension dawned on Sam’s face as Hopper continued to walk down the stairs. Further evidence of their subject’s journey became apparent as they saw more blood smears along the wall and the door at the bottom of the stairs. Hopper started following, urgency getting the better of him as the blood looked more and more apparent –

He finally burst into the room that had housed the Gate. Scorch marks and blood dotted the scene, the last remnants of what had evidently been a potentially lethal fight. The wall around the crack was blackened, the only evidence of any fire. Droplets of blood had dried on the floor.

“I’m assuming that our monster-trapping friend was the one who was bleeding out all over the floor,” Sam supplied.

“They got hurt,” Hopper said. “_Melvald’s _– some of the stuff that was taken were first-aid supplies.”

“You think it was Hargrove?” Sam asked.

Hopper frowned. “I don’t know,” he said. “If it _was _him, his stepsister was right about him not being under that _thing’s _control anymore.”

“And if it _wasn’t?_”

“Then the Russians made a huge mistake opening up the Gate,” Hopper said. “Which would explain why they closed it. They opened the Gate, a monster came tearing through and attacked one of them, so they closed the Gate, trapped the monster and ran.”

“The trap didn’t work very well,” Sam pointed out. “The monster still got loose.”

“Yeah, but the _good _news is,” Hopper countered, “the monster’s after _them _as much as it’s after _us._”

For the first time in the twenty-four hours since he’d woken to the call that Melvald’s had been broken into, he felt a slight ease of the anxiety in his chest.

“We need to work out how they opened the Gate,” Sam said. “So far, I’ve seen _nothing._ We need to check the upper floors. If they built another machine, there would be signs – that machine was enormous. They wouldn’t be able to just _hide it away._”

Hopper had to concede the point. There was too much that still didn’t make sense. He took one last look at the room that looked like a battleground before following Owens out and up the stairs.

An hour later and a comprehensive search of the Lab revealed – _nothing. _There was no sign of any machine on any of the levels, in _any _direction. They’d even gone up to the roof to find precisely fuck-all. A second search of the burnt room revealed no new information, and Sam had half-heartedly suggested that they check out all the rooms that overlooked a part of the Gate.

They were just admiring the crevice on the top floor when the floor started shaking.

Sam and Hopper both collapsed sideways, hitting the floor hard as the building rocked. The ground was shaking as they both found themselves looking at each other, alarm mirrored in their faces. Dust started falling from the wall from the crack, before –

Hopper slammed his eyes shut as the crack suddenly started to light up, bright red fire spreading up the crack like lightning, forking into every crevice. Hopper found himself scrambling to his feet, almost jumping out of his skin as he felt hands on his shoulders –

Sam was practically dragging him upright, stumbling as his slight body weight was not nearly enough to haul Hopper’s significantly more substantial figure to his feet. The ground was still shaking, which wasn’t helping matters as they staggered out into the hallway –

The ground stopped shaking as the Gate stabilized. Hopper pressed himself against the wall as he peered through the doorway at the bright red light that illuminated the room.

_He was back there, waiting with Joyce in a biohazard suit to go through that Gate and find Will Byers – a year later, he was facing the same Gate again, this time with El by his side, barely able to help her as she achieved the impossible and closed the Gate, his only contribution to the process a desperate attempt to keep those monsters away from her – Less than a year later, he was stood facing another Gate, one hand wrapped around Robin Buckley’s waist as he looked at Joyce, unable to face the distant outline of Steve Harrington –_

A noise sliced through the memories – footsteps that were neither his own nor Sam Owens’. It was coming from below them, not just one set of footsteps but _hundreds…_

Hopper slipped back into the room, Sam following him as he approached the crevice in the floor. It was wider than it had been a second ago, the freshly opened Gate having widened it. He looked down and saw the answer to everything that hadn’t made sense a moment ago – while simultaneously unravelling all theories he’d come up with that _had _made sense of the situation.

Several floors below, at the very bottom of the Gate, what could have been a small army of men in Russian uniforms was streaming into the building from beyond the Gate. Interspersed with the men were flower-faced monsters, petals of teeth fluttering dangerously as they threatened to bloom into a deadly bite.

Hopper’s heart almost stopped as the final figure came through the Gate, a pale head unadorned by a hat, a dark khaki uniform covering the rest of the man’s body. He was the only one of them who _hadn’t _been wearing something over his face. Hopper had never seen the man, but he’d made sure to know that face, even from four floors up, even from the angle that Hopper was at.

_Ozerov had opened a Gate – from the Upside Down._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter felt a little like pulling teeth at times... It's a real pain trying to get everyone to WORK IT THE HELL OUT in a way that feels organic. I've spent a lot of time rewriting this chapter with "no - wait - they haven't worked out that part yet..." which is EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING! (Trust me, all your little frustrations at how everyone keeps getting it wrong are nothing to how frustrating it is, because I'm trying to keep track of who knows what and get into their minds to work out that yes, they would make that connection now, or no, they haven't actually got that bit of information yet, or why the hell would they come up with THAT answer when THIS answer seems so much more plausible...) However, I have now mostly got all the main players in the places that they need to be, so that's something...
> 
> A big shout out to all healthcare workers around the world at the moment - everyone else, stay indoors, stay safe, do your bit, and I'll try and get the next chapter out soon!


	40. Part 4 Chapter 5: Some Things Never Change

_Shit._

The previously utterly silent Lab was now full of noise – full of noise and _people. _Those _things _were loose, capable of tearing into concrete and fences like cotton candy. Hopper and Sam were trapped on the top floor of the Lab with no discernible way out.

They pushed themselves away from the crack in the floor, slipping back out into the corridor as Hopper thanked every deity, Christ and Antichrist he could think of that he’d had the foresight to bring guns. He did _not _want to go into this unarmed.

“Doc,” Hopper whispered as they settled down against the wall of the corridor. “Please tell me there’s a fire escape out of this place.”

The look on Sam’s face was more than enough to confirm Hopper’s nightmares. Hopper’s eyes fell closed as he leant back against the wall, anger and despair washing over him.

“After the first one of those _things _got loose, the Department made it very clear,” Sam explained. “One door in, one door out. Easy to lock down, easy to trap that thing inside so we didn’t have another Will Byers-Barbara Holland situation.”

“_Shit,_” Hopper breathed.

Sam couldn’t help but nod. It was one of the reasons why he hated the Lab so much. No matter what he did, no matter what fail-safes he put in place, it always came at a cost that would invariably come back to bite him on the ass. Logical fire safety precautions came with increased exit routes for monsters. Burning an otherworldly infection into Hawkins meant sacrificing the life of a thirteen-year-old boy. Watching the cameras to help people escape a Lab full of monsters meant staying behind to get torn apart. No matter what decision he made, no matter who won, Sam Owens always seemed to lose.

“Okay,” Hopper breathed as the sounds started to spread around the Lab, the building filling up with people. “We’ve got to find a way out. Stay close, stay hidden. Don’t use that gun unless you have to. I’m _not _getting into a firefight with a Lab full of Russian soldiers.”

Sam nodded. “There are four stairwells,” he breathed back. “We’re closest to the north stairwell. The entrance is on the east side. If we can get to the ground floor, we might make it.”

Hopper nodded. “We’ve got to move _fast,_ then,” Hopper whispered. “The longer we wait, the more these guys spread out and can set up a sensible perimeter.”

_Speaking of spreading out…_

The sounds of footsteps, voices overlapping in Russian and noises that sounded like power tools were getting closer.

“We can’t stay here,” Hopper said. “We need to go – _now!_”

They pushed themselves up and Sam started to lead the way down the corridor towards the stairwell. He barely dared to breathe, hearing Hopper making altogether too much noise behind him, _or perhaps that was just his heart, because the microsounds of a shirt rustling were barely enough to warrant the level of anxiety that coursed through his veins_ –

Sam’s hand froze on the door handle as the soft rustle of clothes was drowned out by the voices on the stairs, saying words that Sam could only understand if they slowed down. The voices were close – too close – and getting closer –

Sam pushed Hopper back away from the door, fortunately encountering no resistance from the man as Sam frantically shoved him towards a door that he knew was a broom closet. He just succeeded in getting them in and pulling the door to as they heard the door to the stairwell open.

Hopper pressed himself close to the tiny crack in the doorway, peering out through the opening as wide as one of his eyes. He watched as seven or eight men streamed out of the door and fanned out across the corridor. Words were barked backwards and forwards in Russian, barely intelligible in the echoing acoustic.

Sam pressed a hand against his mouth, muffling a long, low breath that he exhaled, barely able to stop himself shaking. This must have been _exactly _how Bob Newby had felt in those moments before his death, where Sam had tried his best to stay calm as he’d urgently told Bob to _get into the broom closet before he was torn to death by one of those things_. His plan had all but worked, a poorly propped-up broom by the door proving to be the most consequential inconsequential thing as Sam had screamed at Bob to _run, run, keep running, _any semblance of calm gone in panic that would no longer be restrained before Bob Newby had met his demise in front of his friends and a camera. Sam couldn’t help but recall flinging himself away from the monitors, hands gripping at his hair as the monsters had descended onto Bob Newby’s body, legs shaking as he couldn’t stand but wouldn’t fall, couldn’t watch but unable to turn away, desperate to run but paralysed by fear as he knew what waited for him beyond the door –

Sam swallowed his fear. This broom closet featured no such brooms. It was empty. There was no guarantee it would end the same way.

The last of the soldiers passed, and Hopper looked around at Sam.

“Okay, Doc, we’re going to take this one floor at a time,” Hopper breathed, his voice all but inaudible. “We’re clear out in the hallway, so follow me.”

Hopper pulled the door open a fraction, slipping out and pressing himself against the wall. He edged towards the corner of the hallway the soldiers had just disappeared down, feeling the air of Sam following him. He inched his head closer to the corner, peering around to see –

Nothing. Wherever the Russian soldiers had been going, it was not to this corridor.

Hopper silently gestured across the hallway towards the door to the stairwell. Another glance up the corridor revealed that they were yet to have company. Hopper pushed himself away from the wall, staying low as he slipped over to the stairwell. He pressed his ear to the door for a moment and heard –

Once again, nothing. He opened the door a crack to see an empty landing, so he pushed it further open, casting an eye up the corridor as he ushered Sam inside before closing it behind him.

Hopper gestured towards the far wall, pressing himself against it as he sat down. Sam had the foresight to mimic him, sitting down as Hopper leant towards the edge of the landing. There was no sound below them, but Hopper wasn’t taking any chances.

He leant forwards before jerking back sharply. Two floors below, a man was standing on the landing. Hopper’s heart rate spiked as he desperately tried to think of what to do. Taking him out was impossible to do without raising the alarm, but even sneaking as far as the next floor down would be impossible without the man seeing them; they needed to find a way to make him focus on something below them – something that would ensue that the last place the Russian soldier would look was _up._

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. He felt it in his hands, pressing himself closer to the floor as he edged towards the stairwell. He felt the coin in his hand as he reached out over the empty void of the stairwell, and he finally let go.

It had the desired effect, if not quite the neatness. The coin fell, clattering off the metal railings before finally landing on the floor several storeys below. The man blinked, pushing himself away from the wall and starting to walk downstairs. Hopper gestured at Sam to follow him, never taking his eyes off the man below, trying to copy his movements as he went around the winding stairwell, only one floor up. Hopper did his best to stay as quiet as possible, not daring to stop on the landing – if he dropped another coin now, it would only give away the fact that they were above the man –

Their luck ran out on the third floor as the man – currently on the first floor – came to a halt as a door banged open. Voices started echoing in a language spoken too fast for either Hopper or Sam to understand before –

Footsteps started echoing in the stairwell, moving up – _up _– towards them – Hopper started creeping back up the stairs –

A hand on his arm pulled sideways, Sam dragging him out through the door onto the third floor – _but there was no guarantee there weren’t more soldiers on the other side –_

Whatever deity that had encouraged Hopper to bring weapons to the Lab was evidently on their side, because the corridor beyond was largely empty – at least, at _their _end of the corridor. There were Russian soldiers at the far end of the corridor doing – _something _– to the windows, but they were too engrossed in their task to notice the door open and close.

Sam didn’t waste time communicating his plan to Hopper, instead just pulling him straight across the hallway and up against the wall. He pushed Hopper into a room before him, pulling the door closed behind them –

Despite the empty room, it became immediately apparent that the room was an untenable place to hide. They needed to keep moving – they needed to find their way to another stairwell – preferably the _east_ stairwell –

Sam slipped through a fire door into another laboratory, immediately ducking down behind a counter. Quite how the counter escaped the gutting of Hawkins Lab was a mystery to Sam, but he didn’t much care. It gave them a place to _pause – _to _regroup _– to _think, _even if only for the minute that they could afford to stay there.

The sound of handheld drills still echoed outside the room. Sam knew what was beyond the door, despite the complete lack of any window. It was a corridor, one of the nicer ones of Hawkins Lab, with floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a beautiful vista of the surrounding forest. Sam had often found himself there on the occasions he needed somewhere to go and think – somewhere that _wasn’t _his office –

There were a lot of things he didn’t understand about the situation he was currently facing, but the drilling sounds were the most baffling he’d encountered thus far. An army of _Russians_ had broken a hole between dimensions – _from the other side, no less – _and the first thing they did was… _renovate a gutted, defunct building?_

Sam slipped out from behind the counter, Hopper following behind him with a perplexed expression, before Sam cracked open the door.

The soldiers at the far end of the corridor weren’t quite level with Sam and Hopper, but that didn’t make what they were doing any less perplexing. Sam glimpsed them hefting huge flat boards of plywood, painted black on one side, and mounting them up against the windows before screwing them into place. Where they got the plywood – the tools – the screws – remained a mystery – _unless_ –

Sam drew away from the door. He knew which room on the third floor had been broken open to accommodate for the Gate, he just needed to _get _there.

“Jim,” Sam breathed. “I need you to cover me. I want to check something out.”

Hopper looked at him like he’d grown an extra head. “_What?_” he hissed. “Are you out of your _mind?_”

Sam gave a half-shrug as he tried for a smile. “There’s something I need to know, Jim.”

Hopper stared at him incredulously, but followed as Sam slipped out back through the fire door he’d just come through. Once upon a time, these rooms had all been interconnected as laboratories, where tests had been done, chemicals formulated, experiments conducted. Sam tried not to think about exactly _which _room had contained a rubber examination chair with leather restraints attached at the arms and legs when he’d first arrived – _that had not been his doing, he had not been evil like Brenner –_

Sam slipped out the door and into another corridor, fairly certain that if the Russians were prioritizing boarding up windows for reasons he could only guess at just at that moment, (but he would _definitely _run those guesses by Hopper, Joyce Byers and the small army of terrors that had come to be integral to the containment of the Gate.) If he was right about the Russian mission, then the windowless corridors would be safer. The darkness helped, allowing them to freeze, unnoticed, at the slightest sound.

Sam led them through a labyrinth of corridors and defunct laboratories via a route that no sane person would have led them, but allowed them to only have a few feet between them and a hiding place in which to duck if – God forbid – a Russian soldier _were _to see them. Sam reassured himself by feeling the barrel of the gun slung over his back – a weapon capable of ripping a man apart in seconds. A weapon utterly incapable of breaking the skin of monsters. A weapon both too extreme and not extreme enough in the hands of Sam Owens, a scientist who had never even _considered _hurting another human being.

Sam’s suspicions about the interior corridors were confirmed as he slipped through the Lab, Hopper hot on his tail. The darkness was all the cover they had as they crossed hallways and ducked into rooms, until finally they were met with that strange pulsating light illuminating the corridor.

The Russians had opened the Gate from the other side. It stood to reason that they’d brought their tools from the alternate dimension, but Sam still wanted to _check. _He wanted to _know._

He crept closer to the doorway out of which the red light flickered into the hallway. Sam kept low as he pressed himself against the wall, eyes wide as he found himself staring out into the room, the red light burning his eyes.

There was nobody in the room – _yet. _He ducked inside. Hopper followed, the same dubious incredulity that Hopper had been looking at him with for the last ten minutes on his face. Sam slipped closer to the crack in the floor – exactly like the crack two floors above them – and glanced down.

His suspicions were confirmed by what was occurring on the bottom floor. The stream of monsters and men coming through the Gate had been replaced by a forklift, driving back and forth, in and out of the Gate, carrying huge metal crates to the basement.

Sam pushed himself away from the edge, bending down as he turned to Hopper.

“They’ve got a _forklift,_” he breathed. “This is _big _– we need to get out of here – I need to make some calls.”

“No shit, Doc,” Hopper raised a sceptical eyebrow at him. “Seriously, a _forklift _is your biggest concern?”

“Jim,” Sam looked him dead in the eyes and _hoped _that there was enough seriousness in his gaze to help him understand just _how _out of their depths they were. “There was _nothing _left in this building. No drills, no machinery, _certainly _no forklifts. _Everything _they’re using, they _brought _here. This isn’t an _experiment; _this goes _way_ beyond that. This is a huge operation. They’re _using _the alternate dimension to transport an entire military _base_ into Hawkins. They’re blacking out the windows so nobody knows this place is occupied. If _we _hadn’t stumbled on it, we never would have known that they were here.”

Hopper finally seemed to grasp the full severity of the situation, rather than simply contenting himself with _‘the Russians are back in Hawkins with an interdimensional Gate, that’s quite enough bad to be getting on with, thank you very much.’_ He let out a low breath, his dark eyes shadowed under his furrowed brows. He looked around at the door –

_“HEY!”_

Hopper and Sam’s eyes both shot up simultaneously. Sam’s heart rate tripled as he realised that two soldiers standing on the floor above them had noticed them. One of them turned and barked an order in Russian –

“_Go!_” Hopper suddenly hissed, shoving at Sam’s back.

They didn’t bother staying low anymore. Any hopes they’d had in stealth were gone out the window – the priority Hopper seemed to be operating with was to get out of the building before they found themselves drawn into a firefight.

Sam tore through the hallways, leading the way back through the former labs with their own network of fire doors – there may only be one exit, but their concession to fire safety was that at least there were plenty of _routes _to that exit. Sam barrelled through the fire doors interconnecting the laboratories, Hopper on his heel, pushing him, _urging _him to go faster –

They just needed to make it to the east stairwell. The entrance was less than fifty feet from where it came out – provided that the Russians were not blocking it off, they could make it.

_There was no chance the Russians would not block it off now that they knew they were there._

The cold, crystal reality sank in with despair as he rounded a corner to find the end of the corridor packed with soldiers in varying degrees of alarm. Sam pushed open a door, thanking God that of all the places to be hunted by an army of Russians hell-bent on destroying him, a superpowered girl and the United States of America, he was being hunted in a place he had an intimate knowledge of. He knew the labyrinthine corridors like nobody else – almost a year of working in this building – hell, he’d practically _lived _in it –

The door to the east stairwell appeared suddenly ahead of him, just across the hallway – they just had to make it there –

He burst through the door – Hopper was right behind him – before –

Stars splattered across his vision as he dimly became aware of a pain across the bridge of his nose. He felt himself falling as the stars expanded into supernovas, black holes swallowing his vision before he hit the ground.

-:-

Mild annoyance rose in his chest. He’d made it clear that they were meant to be keeping a _low profile. _Low profiles did not encompass yelling and running around a building that was meant to be abandoned.

“General Ozerov!” a voice called out.

He turned, seeing a frantic-looking soldier running towards him. He looked young – as young as those inexplicable beings that had sought to undo everything he’d done – that _could _have caused damage of near-fatal proportions if they’d known what they were doing. Fortunately, they hadn’t, and the carnage that they had left in their wake had been solved by flying out a new electromagnet from Kamchatka and installing it.

“General, there are Americans in the base!” the soldier – the _boy _– explained, panic evident in his eyes.

_What?_

“Is it _them?_” he asked the boy.

“No, General, they are new.”

“How many?” he demanded. He needed to _know _– if _they _had gone to their friends to get reinforcements –

“Two, sir. Two men, both armed but not military.”

“Have we apprehended them?”

“In the process of doing it now, sir-”

The boy broke off as the sound of rapid gunfire exploded above their heads.

“Go and tell those idiots I want them _alive!_” he demanded. “I have plans for them.”

The boy nodded, clearly looking terrified about the prospect of rejoining the firefight. Fortunately, the Russians did not breed soldiers to question orders, and the boy ran off without another word.

Either the Americans were not quite as stupid as once thought, or _they _had made it back to them. It did not matter either way. At least _one _of his children was out looking for them, and had been for days now, learning the land intimately. The others would join the hunt soon enough. But evidently something needed to be done about their _friends._

It was time to give Volkov the chance to redeem himself.

-:-

Hopper felt the gun explode in his hand. He didn’t register actually firing it, his hands simply tightened around the trigger on impulse at the sight of Sam falling to the floor. Blood spurted across the stairwell like it was splattered across Sam’s face. A hand that might have been his own caught Sam’s jacket – Hopper dimly registered slinging an arm around the man and trying to heft him up over his shoulders –

The sound of gunfire exploded against the door behind him. Hopper was only saved by reflexes as he threw himself towards the wall, gun at the ready. He let off a burst of gunfire as the door smashed open, at least two soldiers falling to the ground – Hopper didn’t stick around to look any further –

He sprinted – or more accurately, _stumbled _– down the stairs with Sam’s unconscious form over his shoulder – _carrying a fully-grown man in a crudely executed fireman’s lift at speed was a hell of a lot harder than carrying a thirteen-year-old-boy._ Bullets exploded where his feet were about to be but for the grace of Sam Owens’ unconscious form nearly slipping from his shoulder, forcing him to redouble his grip – Hopper aimed his gun upwards and indiscriminately opened fire in short, unpredictable bursts as he charged down the stairs – _just one more floor —_

His bursts of gunfire were not quite as unpredictable as he’d hoped as a scarily close bullet ricocheted off the bannister inches from where his hand had been. He spared a glance over his shoulder. Perhaps it was just his overactive imagination from the briefest glimpse he allowed himself, but there seemed to be a mob of people pouring down the stairs, packed close - _or maybe they were all blurring together —_

He had _no idea _how he was going to make it out of this.

He heard footsteps on the other side of the door at the bottom of the stairs - a growing thunder of footsteps - of shouts he couldn’t understand - they had him surrounded - they were going to kill him - they were going to kill Sam -

_He was never going to see Joyce again. They would hunt down El and kill her. The kids would try to stop them and get themselves killed - just like Steve Harrington - Harrington, who had taken on a Russian soldier to save Hopper’s life and ultimately given up his own so that Hopper could save the kids - so that Hopper could protect the kids - so that Hopper could look after the kids - he _had_ to look after the kids._

There was nothing else for it.

He charged down the last of the stairs. A voice beyond the doors bellowed an order that Hopper couldn’t understand. He sent a blast of gunfire back up the stairs at the people following him – he took advantage of the window of opportunity it afforded him – barrelling down the last of the stairs and through the open doors –

_And into the virtually empty foyer._

If anything was going to stop him in his tracks, he would have lost quite a large bet on it being a complete absence of any opposition. A chill crawled up his spine, one single, unsettling question running through his mind – _why?_

_Why was there nobody stopping him?_

He wheeled around as a burst of gunfire shocked Hopper into action, sprinting towards the door and out into the cold air. He pelted out across the deserted parking lot and towards the tree line, not daring to stop, not daring to let himself waste the inexplicable opportunity that had been granted to him.

His heart was in his mouth as he burst into the trees. Under cover, he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t resist the impulse as he glanced back, his eyes catching the lone figure that stood framed in the doorway, no hat to hide his head –

Of all the things that had confused him about the day, that had taken the top spot.

_Ozerov had let them go._

-:-

Billy found his sympathy for Steve’s attempt at _shaking _the radio into working growing with every passing second.

The _fucking wire _that had been frayed – or come loose – or _whatever _Maxine had done to it – was determinedly conspiring to _not fucking work. _He’d teased a carburetor into working after it had all but exploded in the middle of the freeway in San Francisco without even needing to call roadside assistance, and he could have sworn he’d been less homicidal after _that _particular incident than he was at that very moment.

It was a _tiny _wire, and a combination of having a pair of tweezers and a flashlight as the full extent of his toolkit and having made the executive decision to take out the batteries so that he didn’t accidentally electrocute himself was making this _incredibly _frustrating. He was fairly certain that it was a loose wire that he needed to twist into place, but he was completely unable to tell if – or more accurately, _when _– the wire was in the required position. He kept putting the batteries back in after every tweak, and of course, _it still wasn’t fucking working._

Screw it. If he got electrocuted, Steve could write an obituary.

_And that was another thing. _It had been very apparent from the second Billy had opened his eyes that Steve hadn’t slept – or indeed made any attempt at sleeping overnight. He was looking worse, the dark shadows under his eyes getting more pronounced. Billy knew what was at play, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch. Billy was getting to the point where he was half-tempted to knock Steve out just to make him sleep for five minutes, but he knew that wasn’t likely to help.

The fact was that Steve just looked _lost._

Billy could see Steve wavering on his decision to leave Hawkins behind. He could understand the urge to just _run away – _Billy felt it too – the idea of going back to face his dad was horrifying – and _Max – Max, who had seen him at his worst, had last seen him under the control of that thing – _but every reminder of home – of what Steve had waiting for him was tearing at his resolve – Billy could _see that. _He could see it in the haunted looks Steve gave to the radio. He could see it in the way Steve would get lost in his own head, would forget whatever he was talking about at the slightest reminder of the others. It hadn’t been hard for Billy to see that Steve didn’t _want _to leave. Billy had realised that while his own opinions on leaving were still very torn, he didn’t want _Steve _to leave. Steve had suffered in all different kinds of hell for eight months, had fought every day with every fibre of his being for his friends. Billy didn’t want him to give that up.

But Billy was also painfully aware of just how _stubborn _Steve could be about it. He could see better than anyone the weight of guilt on Steve’s shoulders. The spectre of what had happened – how he’d changed – what he’d _done _– loomed over Steve. Billy could remember the fear in Steve’s voice in the forest, telling him about how _ashamed _he was. With every reminder of home, Billy could see Steve’s fear grow. Billy didn’t want to lay it bare for him – to tell him that he _had _to go home – he knew that would _terrify _Steve – it terrified _Billy _– and Steve would run away into the night and leave the last piece of himself that he cherished in the cold storm cellar in which they now sat before slipping off into a place where Steve would never _truly _be whole and happy. He’d never be able to _make _himself whole, no matter how hard he tried.

So Billy wanted Steve to come to the decision on his own. He wanted Steve to hear his friends’ voices. If Billy fixed the radio – if Steve could finally, _finally _check up on the others, the people that Steve had been willing to die multiple times over to protect, if Steve could _hear _the reason behind everything he’d done, the last part of himself that he cared about, then _maybe_ it would catalyse the decision. Maybe it would help him come to the _right_ decision.

Steve looked up from where he was sitting on the stairs, noticing Billy watching him. He gave Billy a small smile that convinced Billy of two things in the span of a second. One: that Steve was trying to convince Billy that he was okay, and two: that the fact that Steve felt the need to convince Billy that he was okay was enough proof that Steve was _not _okay for Billy to refuse to let him wallow in whatever misery he was feeling.

“I’m _going _to get this working,” Billy said determinedly, flicking the single, infuriating lock of blonde hair out of his eyes. He pushed the batteries in and revelled in the sound of complete and utter silence. That was fine. Billy just needed to prepare himself for mild electric shocks.

He hissed slightly as the metal tweezers touched the wire, sending a perfectly manageable stinging sensation into his fingers. As metal connected with metal, a hiss of white noise erupted from the radio, sending Steve’s head jerking upwards, watching the radio intently. Billy pulled the tweezers away less than a second later, the extremely mild jolt against his fingers more than enough motivation to –

“Why don’t you just wear the gloves?”

Billy looked over at Steve at the longest sentence he’d strung together that day. He was torn between relief that Steve was still _capable _of speaking, dawning comprehension at Steve’s suggestion, and annoyance at the slightly confused way he’d suggested it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. If he had known Steve less well, he would have thought it was smugness, if it weren’t for the fact that Steve didn’t get smug about anything even remotely scientific. He’d long since accepted his lot as brawn rather than brains.

Billy slipped the black gloves on before picking up the tweezers once again. Touching the metal against the wires produced the same hissing sound as before. Billy carefully pinched the loose wire between the teeth of the tweezers, lifting it until the white noise started up again.

_It was definitely that wire._

He pulled at it gently, the slightest pressure catching it as the frayed end came out. Billy set the radio down on the floor and slipped the flashlight between his teeth, pinching the blue rubber casing of the wire he’d carefully detangled so that he didn’t lose track of it.

The next step was finding the other end. He slowly lifted the circuit board up, his eyes feeling strained as he looked for any loose, frayed wire –

He could have _killed _Maxine.

The broken end of the wire was a few stray threads of metal sticking out of the spot where the wire had been soldered to the circuit board. Less than three millimetres of the metal threads were even remotely workable – if he’d had a soldering iron, he’d have simply soldered the wire to the circuit board again, but given that he only had a pair of _tweezers…_

“Can I help?”

Steve’s voice echoed above him, but Billy didn’t look up. He didn’t dare take his eyes off his work.

“No,” he replied around the flashlight in his mouth. He was aware that only the vowel sound came out, but he didn’t much care. Steve understood the message.

Billy carefully found one of the threads of wire and pinched it between the sharp end of the tweezers. He held it there as he lay on his front, looking so intently at the radio he could have sworn that he could _feel _himself getting short-sighted. He gently touched the frayed end of the wire between his teeth to the metal thread, hearing a muffled version of the white noise as he held it in place. He gently twisted the wires together, hoping that the contact would be enough.

He removed the tweezers for a moment, trying not to throw the radio, himself, or Steve across the room as the white noise guttered and died. He pulled a second thread of metal, carefully twisting it around the first point of contact –

The white noise started up again, a little steadier now –

Billy caught the final tiny thread of wire and twisted it around the first two, barely able to contain his own excitement as the white noise filling the room finally became steady again. He carefully lowered the blue plastic wire still in his casing – he could have sworn that he’d never handled anything with such care in his life –

The white noise still filled the cabin as he let go of the wire. Billy let out a breath that he hadn’t known he’d been holding as Steve crouched down beside him.

“Is it fixed?” Steve asked.

“Well, it’s making a noise,” Billy answered wryly.

“Maybe they’re not transmitting anything,” Steve suggested. “Have you checked the frequency?”

Billy looked at him incredulously, horror mounting in his chest. “The _what _now?”

“The frequency,” Steve explained like it was the simplest thing in the world. “We always broadcast it on fourteen point one five eight.”

_Steve was telling him this _now?

“Here, let me-”

“_NO!_” Billy smacked Steve’s outstretched hand away from it. Steve looked surprised by the sudden outburst, but Billy would probably not even lose a moment’s sleep after the inevitable murder that would have occurred if Steve had touched the radio and broken it again.

“Just…” Billy said, trying to regain control over his breathing. “Can you check it without… _touching _anything?”

“Uh…”

Billy sighed. “Okay, I’m going to make the call that Maxine probably left it on the frequency you guys always broadcast on. So we’re going to listen to it and hope that something comes through, and if it starts to drive us insane, you’re going to let _me _turn it off, okay?”

Steve nodded slowly, still looking ever so slightly alarmed by Billy’s intensity. Billy let out another long breath as Steve sat back.

“Good,” he breathed, sitting up to look at Steve. “Just… whatever you do… _don’t touch the fucking radio._”

-:-

To say Joyce approached the cabin with trepidation was putting it mildly.

A call that had made next to no sense coming in just before lunch had disturbed her albeit already disturbed day. She’d fielded no fewer than four calls from Paul Harrington demanding an update from Hopper on the case, each time responding with _‘he’s out following up on a lead right now, I’ll have him call you when he gets a chance,’ _which had invariably resulted in an interrogation about what the lead was, before Joyce had politely shut down any further attempt at a conversation before finally reaching the point where she could hang up without jeopardizing her job. So when she’d heard Hopper’s voice on the other end of the phone, she’d been relieved for the four and a quarter seconds between realising that it was Hopper calling and realising that there was something very, very wrong.

Hopper’s call had been cagey to the point of nonsensical, talking as though they were being bugged. A few allusions to their childhood days spend with grandparents – a bare-faced lie, given that Joyce and Hopper hadn’t known each other’s names until middle school and Hopper’s grandfather had died when he was seven – and an insane, rambling spiel about an urgent need to relive those days where Joyce had grabbed a first-aid kit from the kitchen after Hopper had broken his nose falling down a hill – also a lie – had _just about _communicated that she needed to come to his cabin to deal with... _some _injury or other.

Walking into Hopper’s cabin to find Sam Owens lying unconscious on the couch was probably somewhere in the latter half of her top ten situations she’d expected to find.

“Hop, what the hell _happened?_”

It took a lot to rattle Hopper to the extent that he was. He was pacing like a cornered wildcat, eyes constantly on the windows. His hands were shaking. He was skittish, every breath of wind through the trees sending his back a little straighter, every noise of the forest stilling him for the briefest moment as he watched before he started pacing again.

“Hop, what did you find there?” Joyce asked gently. She felt the question _‘did you find anything’ _was redundant.

Hopper clenched his eyes shut, passing a hand over his face as he closed his eyes.

“The Russians are back,” Hopper breathed. “They opened the Gate from the other side. They’ve brought… they’ve brought a fucking _army. _They’ve got those – those _things _under their control. We barely made it out…”

Joyce felt the doom of Hopper’s words settle heavily in her stomach. She swallowed the ball of nauseating anxiety that threatened to burst out of her in either a scream or a regurgitation of her breakfast – she wasn’t entirely sure which.

She had to swallow her fear. She couldn’t lose control – not with Hopper in this state. At least _one _of them needed to be sane.

“Hop,” she said softly, resting a hand gently on his arm. He flinched at the immediate touch, but then smiled at her reassuringly as he opened his eyes. She took that as an invitation to settle it against his bicep.

“Hop, you _made it out,_” she breathed as she started to rub it up and down. “You’re okay, Owens is going to be okay-”

“That’s just _it, _Joyce,” Hopper snapped. “We didn’t _escape, _they _let us go._ And I don’t know _why, _but it’s not _safe _here anymore! This is the _only _safe place I could think to come – I didn’t want to put _you _in danger, I didn’t want to take him to a hospital in case they _check _– I don’t-”

He broke off, choking on the fear that was so completely overwhelming it pressed his tongue down.

“_I don’t know what to do, _Joyce,” he gasped desperately. The look he gave her was dark, wild eyes so full of panic. She had never seen him like this, openly admitting how lost he was. Hopper always had a _plan, _and if he didn’t _have_ a plan, he’d work with what he had to _find _a plan – to see him looking so _lost _like this, so _rattled _was alarming.

“Hop – _Hop,_” she said gently. “Go have a shower and grab a change of clothes. I’ll look after Owens for a while, and then we’ll work this out.”

Hopper looked at her for a moment, the ghost of an argument crossing his face as he clearly thought about it, but Joyce simply raised an eyebrow at him before going over to the freezer and grabbing a bag of frozen peas before sitting down beside Owens. Hopper slunk out of the room and towards the shower. Joyce let out a shaky exhale before setting about checking out Owens.

The doctor’s face was probably never going to look the same again unless he wanted plastic surgery. She got up and grabbed a washcloth and a bowl of water and set about methodically wiping away the dried blood away from his face. She was privately quite glad that he was unconscious while she was doing this, because she was certain it would _hurt_ if he wasn’t.

Once the worst of the blood was gone, she took in his face. A large bruise mottled his face, painting his features purple. He was going to have one _hell _of a headache when he woke up, but that probably wouldn’t be for a little while. She turned him onto his side, finding it _much _easier to do with Owens than she’d found it with Hopper before resting the peas in a way that hopefully wouldn’t inadvertently end up smothering him in his sleep.

He was breathing. That was good enough.

Hopper emerged from the shower about twenty minutes later in a pair of jeans and his old bomber jacket looking considerably calmer than he had done beforehand. He still looked exhausted – Joyce made a mental note to make sure he went to bed at a sensible time that evening – but he collapsed heavily into an armchair. Joyce got up and grabbed a bottle of bourbon from his emergency stash – because unconscious scientists, Russian invasions via the Upside Down and desperate escapes from secret Labs qualified as an emergency in _her _book – and poured two generous measures into a couple of mugs. Hopper gratefully took the mug she handed him, taking a long drink from the vessel that proudly proclaimed him _‘Daddy’s Little Princess’. _Joyce made a mental note to ask him later where _exactly _that mug had come from as she took a sip from her own _‘I’m with stupid’ _mug.

“So what happened?” Joyce finally asked again.

Hopper sighed as he took another sip. “We got into the Lab, no problem. It was completely unoccupied. There _had _been a Gate – the kids were right about that – but when we were there, it was closed. There was… there was something else, too.”

He took another long swig out of the mug, sounding completely drained while Joyce watched him.

“Someone else _had _been there,” Hopper continued. “Someone who’d gotten on the wrong end of one of those _things. _Got on the wrong end of one of those _monsters. _But… they trapped it. Got it into a room and set fire to the doors.”

“Smart,” Joyce muttered.

“Well, they _certainly _knew what they were dealing with,” Hopper passed a hand over his face. “I _thought _it would have been one of the people who’d tried to open the Gate until I realised that they were opening the Gate from _that place._”

“Do you think it was Billy?” Joyce asked.

Hopper shrugged. “I don’t even _know _what to think right now,” he breathed. “I didn’t _see _Hargrove with them, but that doesn’t mean shit.”

“So you _saw _them, then?” Joyce breathed.

Hopper nodded. “The Gate opened up while we were there,” Hopper muttered. “Cracked open straight through the Lab. And – and fucking _Red Dawn _starts coming through.”

Joyce’s stomach sank lower. “How bad _is _it?”

Hopper looked at her, stripping back the veil that he seemed to be hiding his horror behind. “They’ve got those _things _on their side. Those – those fucking _Demo-_things or whatever the kids call them. The big ones – like the one that took Will, only…”

The only thing that stopped Joyce from screaming, grabbing whatever she could find and running back to her car to drag Will out of school and back into her eyesight, never to leave until the Russians had been quite effectively annihilated was the knowledge that any loss of control was undoubtedly going to send Hopper spiralling again.

“They’ve got a fucking _army _of them, Joyce,” Hopper sighed. “And that – that _Colonel _that Owens let go – he’s _leading _the fucking invasion_._ Jesus…”

The urge to run and drag _all _the kids out of school and bring them under her watchful eyes was almost overwhelming Joyce.

“I think we need to face the reality of the situation, Joyce,” Hopper said heavily, every single word weighted with foreboding as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

“What do you mean?”

“Those _things _were with them, Joyce,” he breathed. “They weren’t trying to _kill _them, they were _compliant. _Which means that _thing _that was inside Will is _also _with them.”

“You think Billy’s with them,” Joyce breathed.

“I think we wouldn’t be _having _this conversation if the kids hadn’t already had it,” Hopper said. “For all their ideas about that thing _leaving _him – does that _really _sound plausible, or does it sound more like the story a fourteen-year-old girl came up with to try and convince herself that her brother was okay?”

Joyce gave him a heartbroken look that confirmed her answer in her eyes, but she wasn’t quite ready to admit it. “We got it out of _Will,_” she said gently. “And what about the person who trapped that thing? And the people that broke into Melvald’s?”

“_I know, _I know,” Hopper closed his eyes and rubbed them desperately as he hunched over his knees. “There’s something we’re missing – I _know _there is – but we need to keep those kids _safe. _Particularly _now, _with the Russians back – with those _things _out there – we need-”

He pushed himself to his feet, lurching sideways slightly as dizziness hit him. Joyce was there in a heartbeat, a hand on his arm, _trying _to calm him down.

“_Jesus,_” he breathed. “We need to get the kids. _All _of them. We need to get them somewhere _safe._”

“Hop, ‘safe’ seems… _relative _in Hawkins,” Joyce said. “This seems as safe as we’re going to get.”

Hopper had already thought about that. If Hargrove _was _with them, then most of their houses were compromised. The only place Hargrove _hadn’t _been, that Hargrove _didn’t _know was –

Ice dropped down into his stomach. The Russians had let them go for _this. _They hadn’t been after him or Owens – Owens would have been perfectly safe at the hospital – they’d let him go because they’d been after _El._

And Hopper had led them straight to the one place that they _hadn’t _known about, because in a blind panic, that was the most logical place to go –

_Shit._

“Joyce, we need to go,” he said darkly as he ran into his room and grabbed a duffel bag. He moved through the cabin like a tornado, grabbing anything that could be useful. A change of underwear or two from his dresser, the first aid kit, some changes of clothes for El, El’s radio –

He pressed the radio into Joyce’s hands as she stood in the centre of the room, looking confused and more than a little alarmed.

“Hop, what’s wrong?”

“They know about the cabin,” he breathed. “They let me go to follow me. They don’t give a damn about getting me or Owens, they _want _El.”

Comprehension chilled Joyce’s chest. “Did you _see _them?” she asked incredulously.

“No,” Hopper breathed. “But they’re coming. I _know _they’re coming.”

-:-

Volkov smiled to himself from his vantage point, camouflaged in the trees. Nobody ever thought to look _up_ when they did their searches. The policeman had come out alone, looking around, checking the traps and tripwires that had so nearly been Volkov’s downfall – and also the point where he had decided to go _up _into the trees – but the traps had remained untouched. He’d evidently decided that the coast was clear, because he’d gone back into the house and emerged a moment later with the unconscious man slung over his shoulder.

The woman emerged a second later carrying a large bag which she hauled into the back of the policeman’s car.

“Radio the kids,” the policeman said quietly – so quietly that if Volkov hadn’t been lucky in his hiding spot, he wouldn’t have heard. “Tell them that we’re all meeting at yours. We’ll work out a plan from there. We’ll find a way to get the _hell _out of Hawkins.”

“Do you think _Murray _might be an option?” the woman asked.

“_Yeah,_ if I knew how to _reach _him,” the policeman said. “He’s relocated _at_ _least _twice since Starcourt. He stopped _telling _me where he was going to be, because apparently _‘I can’t be trusted with his address and phone number’._”

That was interesting. He’d heard no mention of any _‘Murray’ _at any point. The Americans hadn’t mentioned this _‘Murray’ _character, but if he’d been involved at Starcourt…

“Okay, well, we could just _leave, _find a motel or something_-_”

“We can discuss this with the kids when we’re at yours, Joyce,” the policeman sighed.

_Joyce._

The name sent shockwaves through his system as he remembered the intelligence that they had gleaned from the Americans. _Joyce Byers: mother to Will Byers, one of the names mentioned in the initial interrogation in the Hawkins base. Close personal connection to the target. _That was very interesting indeed.

Volkov had been tasked with finding the girl and reporting back to the Comrade General. Well, he _definitely_ had something to report now. Joyce Byers and, to quote the policeman, _‘all the kids’ _would be at Joyce Byers’ place of residence together. Volkov could organise a tactical team to go in and take them all in – or quite possibly, take them all out.

It was about time he found himself a car.

-:-

“Are you _sure _it’s working?”

“As sure as I was when you last asked me.”

Steve sighed. The radio had been blasting white noise into the room for hours. Steve couldn’t stop himself from thinking of _all the possible ways this had gone wrong. _Maybe they were out of range. Maybe Billy hadn’t fixed it properly. Maybe it was on the wrong frequency. Maybe the others had given up on radios altogether.

It would help his anxiety if Billy would let him _touch _the fucking thing, but Billy seemed pretty against the idea when Steve had asked him. Still, that _had _been hours ago.

“Billy, are you _sure _I can’t-”

“No.”

_Well, that was that._

Steve let out a sigh, before getting up and starting to pace around the room. He felt _caged_, waiting like this. He was trapped in a situation entirely of his own making. He just wanted to _know _that the others were okay. He _needed _to know that the others were okay. That was why he had gone to all this trouble, after all. He just wanted to check in on them – to hear their voices one last time.

“They’re probably just at school, Steve,” Billy pointed out in his most calming voice.

“You don’t _know _that,” Steve growled back.

“I _do _know that, because it’s the middle of the afternoon,” Billy said. “Unlike _certain people, _I’ve been keeping track of the days. I’m pretty sure it’s Monday, and if it’s _not _Monday, then I think it’s Tuesday. So for God’s sake, calm down, because you’re making _me _anxious-”

_“Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?”_

Both their heads snapped towards the radio as it exploded with sound. Joyce Byers’ hesitant voice erupted through it, worry lacing every inch of her tone.

“Mrs Byers…” Steve breathed.

_“I don’t know if this is on – Will? Jonathan? Can any of you hear me? Hop – how do I-”_

White noise filled the room, leaving Steve and Billy staring at the radio that had just erupted with Joyce Byers’ voice. Billy was the first to move, looking over and staring at Steve, who didn’t even notice.

_That was Joyce Byers._

She’d _been there. _The radio worked. She was fine, she was talking to Hopper – _Hopper!_ – They were okay, they’d been asking for Will and Jonathan –

_“Mom? Is that you? Over.”_

Will Byers’ voice burst out of the radio. Steve dropped to his knees beside the radio, barely able to keep himself in check, the only thing stopping him from breaking down then and there being a burning desire to hear the reply for himself.

_“Will? Sweetie, is that you? Are you there? Oh, thank God!”_

Steve pressed a hand against his mouth, closing his eyes against the world at the sound of her voice, still so full of _love _and _worry _at the thought of her sons proving unreachable. _Some things never changed._

_“Joyce!”_

Hopper’s voice sounded muffled, as though his annoyed yell of Joyce’s name was some way away from the actual radio.

_“Will, sweetheart, I need you to listen very carefully to me,” _Joyce began. _“Is – is Jonathan there?”_

_“Uh, no – I’m with Mike, Dustin and Lucas though.”_

Steve felt his chest tighten at the mention of their names. He felt an overwhelming urge to start laughing – or quite possibly crying – _they were still together, they were okay… _He felt Billy drop down beside him, a gentle hand resting on his shoulder.

_“Is El with you?” _Joyce’s voice jumped up half an octave.

_“No, she’s just packing up after Chemistry. She should be out in a minute. We’re just on our way home as soon as we find Nancy and Jonathan.”_

Steve actually _did _laugh slightly that – it didn’t surprise him in the slightest that Nancy and Jonathan were still being treated as a single entity. That they were taking over his role as resident chauffeur of the group gave Steve a slightly melancholy feeling.

_“Okay, Will, sweetie, I need you to listen carefully,” _Joyce said in a voice of determined calm. _“I need you to find the others. Nancy, Jonathan, El, Robin, Max – everyone. I need you to make sure that you all come straight to ours. It’s really important, okay?”_

_“Mom, what’s going on?” _Will’s voice held a certain amount of trepidation.

_“Are you somewhere quiet?”_

_“I can be, just give me a second…”_

There was a pause, white noise filling the room, before –

_“Okay, it’s just me, mom.”_

_“Sweetie,” _Joyce began, sounding nervous. _“The Gate opened. I don’t really understand, but you kids were right, it _had _been opened before, and it was opened again. The… The Russians opened it from the Upside Down. They’re here in Hawkins. Hop thinks his cabin might be compromised, and you kids are in danger – we’re _all _in danger. Hop barely got out of that place alive, so we need you all to come home. We’ll work out what to do then.”_

White noise echoed out of the speaker as sobering horror doused Steve. His throat closed as fear welled up in his throat.

“No,” he breathed. “No – no – they can’t – they _can’t-_”

“Steve-”

“No – Billy – _you don’t understand,_” Steve gave him a look that stripped away any pretence of happiness. “Billy – if the Russians are back – if Hopper’s place is compromised, the _first _place they’re going to look is the Byers’ place.”

“You don’t know that-”

“_Yes, I do!_” Steve ran a hand through his hair as he pushed himself to his feet. “Billy, the _first name _I gave them was Will Byers’ name! If they all go to the Byers’ house, they’re – they’re walking into a trap!”

Billy got to his feet, looking at Steve warily.

“So what should we do?” Billy asked.

It wasn’t a question – not _really. _This – _this _was why they had come back – why they had risked their lives – why they had risked the far more valuable commodity of _each other’s lives. _Steve wanted to grab the radio, to _scream _into it that they couldn’t do it, but with the microphone completely broken, that wasn’t an option.

Steve swallowed, before walking over to the wall and grabbing the flamethrower, slinging it over his back. He didn’t notice Billy’s barely concealed smile as he picked up the handgun that the Russians had given him. He didn’t even register that he hadn’t even _told _Billy his plan, because there was no other answer.

There wasn’t ever even a question.

-:-

Volkov didn’t bother questioning exactly _how _they’d gotten the car so quickly, so relieved as he was to see it as the light started fading.

It was a modern vehicle, slightly smaller than the off-road vehicle that the policeman was driving. He supposed it was possible that they’d bought it, but it looked more like one of the cars they’d had beyond the Gaye. Volkov reasoned that there had been a very wide corridor in the basement that had led to a very heavy-duty elevator designed for transporting state-of-the-art scientific machinery that did not necessarily disassemble well. From the briefest glance that Volkov had had of the Laboratory, it wasn’t _inconceivable _that they’d managed to get the car out of the Lab. They might have needed to remove the wheels and screw it back on, but Volkov was grateful that they’d managed to do it quite so quickly.

He was even more grateful at the four soldiers that sat in the back.

Volkov didn’t recognise the driver – a man wearing a suit that probably _could _have fitted him better if anyone bothered to care. The driver got out of the car and handed him a suit on a hanger.

“What’s this?” Volkov asked.

“The General’s idea,” the man said. “It seems a bit unnecessary, but he wants you to be sure that she is with them before we make any hostile attempts. He also asked me to give you this.”

The man handed Volkov a leather folder. Volkov opened it, taking in its contents as he understood the need for a suit.

He pulled out a small wallet, running his hands over the metal shield and taking in the identity card.

“You really think that _they _will be there?” the man asked.

“These people are their friends,” Volkov explained. “If those bastards are _anywhere, _they will be there. We just need to wait for them.”

The man raised an eyebrow at him. “Is this _personal?_”

Volkov pinched his lips together. He remembered waking up in the middle of that _place, _hands and legs tied up in an extremely uncomfortable position as he looked around, taking in the sight of his comrades lying dead around him. He’d known them – he was their commanding officer – it had been his duty to _protect _them – and those bastards had _killed _his men with skills that _he_ had taught them. They should have killed _him _while they’d had the chance.

“Extremely,” Volkov muttered.

The man rolled his eyes. “Very well.”

Volkov slipped the wallet back into the folder as he looked up at the man. “So who’s taking the lead?”

“That depends, Lieutenant,” the man said. “How’s your American accent?”

-:-

Awareness returned slowly to Sam Owens.

Everything felt fuzzy, as though he was underwater. Garbled noises that he couldn’t quite make out echoed somewhere beyond the darkness. He realised his eyes were still closed –

In the same moment as he realised that he needed to open his eyes, blinding pain forced its way into clarity as he felt like his nose had been hacked in two with a rusty saw. He was normally a very genial person and avoided swearing on principle, but _Jesus fucking Christ did that hurt like a motherfucking bitch!_

He let out a groan at the sudden feeling of pain as he _also _realised that he was lying down. Vague flashes of what had happened started to come back to him – _the Lab – the Gate – the Russians –_

_SHIT!_

He groaned again as he tried to force himself up, only to find a very gentle hand on his shoulder. He forced his eyes open to find himself looking up at Joyce Byers.

He was impressed that she understood the attempt at conversation he made, his words slurring together as he groaned out a question about where he was.

“You’re at my house,” Joyce said soothingly. “Hop got you out of the Lab, you’ve been out for most of the day.”

Well, that answered most of his next question.

“Is he okay?” Sam tried to ask, but he was fairly certain that what came out was a string of indecipherable vowel sounds.

Quite _how _Joyce Byers got quite as good at understanding semi-conscious ramblings of people who had taken severe beatings to the face was beyond him, but she may have simply just used common sense to work out the most logical questions that recently-unconscious people who had escaped from defunct top-secret government black sites that had been taken over by the Soviets would have. She waved over Hopper, who looked physically fine, if not incredibly stressed.

“Hey Doc,” Hopper muttered, having the good sense to keep his voice down. “How are you feeling?”

Sam tried his hardest to shoot him an amused, if unimpressed, look.

“How bad do I look?” Sam slurred.

Hopper gave him a wry grin. “I think you can cross modelling off the careers you’d succeed in,” he grinned. “But I’m sure you could have a career in Hollywood as a horror movie extra.”

“Good to know,” Sam groaned. “What happened?”

“Well,” Hopper shrugged. “You ran into the wrong end of a gun.”

And if that wasn’t just _fantastic._

“How’d we get out?”

Hopper tilted his head slightly. “A combination of my brilliance and…”

He trailed off, his eyes not quite meeting Sam’s.

“_And?_” Sam gently nudged.

Hopper sighed. “And the fact that they wanted us to escape,” he finished. “I’m pretty sure my cabin’s been compromised. You’re currently on Joyce Byers’ couch. The kids are all here, so we’ll find somewhere safe to go – somewhere out of Hawkins-”

“Wait, we’re _leaving?_”

The voice came from over Hopper’s shoulder – the voice of one extremely angry-sounding Jonathan Byers. Hopper stood up, trying to quell the anxiety in his stomach as he turned to face him.

“Kid, I know it’s hard-”

“It’s not _hard _at all,” Jonathan snarled. “What? We’re all just going to _leave? _To _run away, _to not even _try _to fight?”

“Kid, you weren’t _there,_” Hopper pointed out, his irritation palpable in his voice. “We can’t just _close the Gate_ this time, it’s not that _simple. _They _know _we’re here, they _know _we’re onto them – they’re after us – they’re after _you!_”

“So we call for help,” Nancy said simply.

“The kind of help we _need _is going to take _time,_” Sam said gently. “I can get a tactical team here in under an hour, certainly, I can send them into that Lab, and they’ll be torn to shreds in under ten minutes. Hopper’s right – we need to go somewhere safe.”

“But what about our _families?_” Robin asked. “I’ve got my mom and dad here – if these Russians are after us, they’ll be after _them, _too.”

Sam looked at her sympathetically. “I’ll make the call now,” he said. “Start the ball rolling.”

He groaned as he pushed himself up off the couch, stumbling over to the phone. Joyce moved to help him, grabbing one of the dining chairs and putting it by the phone. He sat down heavily as he began to dial a number as Joyce came back to stand beside Hopper.

Hopper did his best to avoid eye contact with everyone else in the room. Max was sat a little way apart from the others, her status as a pariah not quite revoked. Will was stood with Jonathan by the door, Nancy pacing in front of them. Dustin and Robin were leaning on the kitchen counter, while Lucas and Mike were sat at the kitchen table. El was watching Hopper intently from where she was hovering by the television, tracking every move.

“Scared,” El finally broke the silence.

Hopper looked over at her. He didn’t say a word, because there were no words left to say. She knew better than anyone the paralysing fear he felt whenever she was in danger – she’d been on the receiving end of the storm that followed on the occasions that she herself had been responsible for that danger. She knew what weighed heavily on his mind; she knew _why _he felt so desperate to get them out of Hawkins to go somewhere they didn’t even know yet.

“Robin’s right,” Nancy said. “We can’t just _run away – _we’ve got _people _here – we’ve got _friends _here-”

“Friends that are going to be in a hell of a lot more danger if we stay than if we go.”

“But what about Billy?” Max asked. “If he’s still out there, he could be in danger.”

A tense silence followed those words. Hopper _really _didn’t want to be the one to have to tell her –

“Sweetie,” Joyce said softly, and Hopper could have kissed her. “The – the Russians… They’ve got those _things _with them…”

Max frowned at her, confused. “Yeah, you _said. _So?”

“So they’re working with the Mind Flayer,” Mike said bluntly.

“_Mike,_” Nancy said exasperatedly, trying to soften her tone at his complete lack of tact.

Max’s eyes fell closed as she bowed her head, looking into her lap. She forced back the tears that threatened to prick her eyes.

“So that’s _it, _then?” Max choked out. “The Mind Flayer’s come back, Billy _must _be working with the Russians, we run away, we leave him behind – _again-_”

“Max,” Lucas started gently.

“_No!_” Max hissed. “No – Lucas – we could have just _stopped _this – we could have stopped _all _of this if we’d just got him out of that place a little sooner – if you had all just _listened _to me-”

“What, by just _letting _you open up Gates in the middle of the woods?” Dustin cut her off.

“Maybe by _having _the conversation in the first place!” Max snarled. “And now – we’re leaving him behind – _again! _Like he’s nothing – _again! _Like he’s not even _in there anymore-_”

She broke off, choking on a sob that threatened to overwhelm her. Joyce’s face tightened as she crossed the room, putting a sympathetic hand on her shoulder and pulling her into a hug. Max melted at the touch, burying herself in Joyce’s arms as she broke down. She clutched desperately at the back of Joyce’s shirt as she sobbed uncontrollably.

“What about the message?” Max pleaded, her voice thick through the tears. “What about what he said to me? He _warned _me… He tried to _warn _me…”

Nancy frowned. “She’s got a point,” she muttered. “If the Russians have only _just _opened the Gate, then why did Billy send that message two days ago?”

“They didn’t _just _open the Gate,” Hopper mentioned. “The wall was cracked when we got there. The Gate had already been opened, but it had closed.”

“Well, that explains the Demogorgon,” Will muttered.

“It also explains the other Russians,” Nancy ploughed on. “They must have come through the first time it opened. But why did they _close _it?”

“Maybe _they _didn’t,” Sam said, announcing his return to the conversation.

Every head in the room turned to look at him.

“Jim, have you told them about that room that we found?” Sam asked.

Hopper turned to the heads that snapped towards him. “We found a room in the Lab,” Hopper elaborated. “Someone had tried to trap one of those _things _in it.”

“A _Demogorgon?_” Lucas echoed.

Sam nodded. “Quite effectively, too,” he explained. “They clearly had some experience dealing with them. They set fire to the doors of the room. It wasn’t enough to kill it, evidently, given that everything suggests that it ultimately escaped from the Lab, but it might have been enough for the person to _escape _from it.”

“So there’s someone out there who’s working against the Russians?” Robin’s eyebrows shot up.

“Do you think they opened the Gate?” Dustin asked.

“It’s possible,” Sam said.

“Could it have been Billy?” Max asked, sounding desperate. “If he wasn’t Flayed, could it have been Billy?”

Sam looked uncomfortable. “_If _he wasn’t under the Hive Mind’s control, it’s possible, but more likely that there’s another Russian defector, like your scientist friend.”

Sam nodded pointedly at Joyce, whose eyes widened in comprehension.

“Alexei?” she breathed. “Hop – _you _said that Alexei was more scared of _them _than he was of us_ – that’s _why he didn’t run from us.”

“_Melvald’s_,” Hopper breathed. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong… The break-in _wasn’t _random, they were after supplies.”

“Hang on – _they?_” Jonathan asked. “You think the guys who broke into Melvald’s were Russian defectors?”

“That makes sense, actually,” Robin pointed out. “Two guys defect from the Soviet Union through an interdimensional portal and close it behind them while getting chased by a Demogorgon, they’re probably not going to have a huge amount with them.”

“But then… why break into Steve’s parents’ place?” Dustin asked.

Everyone fell silent as they all drew blanks on the answer.

“We’re missing something,” Nancy said. “If these guys are defecting from the Russians, maybe we can _find _them. Ask them for _help _or something.”

“Or maybe they’re trying to _find _help,” Robin suggested. “If they’ve been with the Soviet Union for a while – if they’re involved in this operation to open up a Gate in Hawkins, then they might know that Steve was caught in Starcourt. They could just be trying to reach out to someone-”

“In which case we need to find them,” Nancy said. “If they’re camping, they might be in the woods-”

“_No,_ no, I know where this is going,” Hopper said firmly, cutting them off. “And I’m telling you now, _no. _You aren’t going hunting for _Russian defectors _in the woods – we need to stay together and find somewhere safe until whatever backup the Doc has called arrives.”

“Good news on that front,” Sam mentioned. “I’ve got a rendezvous with someone tomorrow morning. We just need to find somewhere safe for the night.”

Hopper felt a wave of relief wash over him.

“So we’re on our own for one night,” Hopper said. “And I swear to God, if anyone says, _‘how bad can it be’, _I’ll personally shoot them.”

-:-

Volkov could _feel _the annoyance of the man next to him. They had parked close enough to the bottom of the driveway that they would not be noticed by the occupants of the house, but it was enough that Volkov could see them through the window.

They’d established that they were all there, save for the two that Volkov wanted most. The man next to him – he’d introduced himself as a Sergeant but Volkov had forgotten his name in the second after he’d heard it – wanted to move, but Volkov insisted on being patient. He wanted to be _sure…_

“Lieutenant, they’re preparing to leave_,_” the Sergeant pointed out. “If we don’t move now, we’ll lose them.”

Volkov’s anger grew. “Be _patient._”

“Do _you _want to explain to the General that you let them go for the _chance _that the Americans would show?”

“Remember your place, Sergeant.”

The words sat heavy with threat. He _would not _be questioned – not on this.

“Perhaps _you _should remember the mission,” the Sergeant said. “The _girl _is our mission, not your revenge. We should take her now – if they’re _not _there, we’ll stand a better chance. I wouldn’t have thought you’d _want _to go another round with them.”

Volkov shot the Sergeant a filthy look. “They took me by surprise,” Volkov spat. “That was their _only _advantage.”

The Sergeant snorted derisively. “Sure,” he muttered, opening the door and getting out. “Well, when you get bored of waiting in the car, we’ll be getting the girl. I’m not losing _my _head because _you _couldn’t put the Union first.”

-:-

Jonathan threw a set of clothes into a duffel bag, anxiety filling his chest. He’d grabbed everything he thought he could possibly need for a night running from Russians into a bag, feeling a certain sense of relief that Robin had chosen to pack Steve’s bat in the trunk of her car. She’d brought it out and had it set up against the wall in the living room, ready _just in case._

“So where _are _we planning on going?” he asked as he walked out into the living room, secretly glad he’d packed a few spare sets of clothes just in case they were going to be away for more than one night.

“Probably a motel somewhere,” Joyce said. “Doctor Owens says there’s a chance he can get us somewhere safe once he’s had his meeting tomorrow.”

Jonathan nodded. “Nancy, do you want to call your parents? Tell them you and Mike are going to be staying here tonight or something, so they don’t worry-”

“Already done,” Nancy said. “They’re fine with it, I spoke to my mom, she’s-”

_Knock knock knock._

All heads in the room snapped towards the door. Utter silence fell over the room. Nobody dared to even _breathe _loudly.

“Get in the bedrooms,” Hopper whispered towards the kids. “Jonathan, Nancy, Robin – get ready to _run._”

They moved silently, Jonathan ushering the others into his bedroom and pulling down the blinds as Joyce and Hopper stayed in the living room. It was completely dark outside – they couldn’t see anything, but _anything _could see them. He pressed himself closer to the door, leaving it open a crack so that he could get the slightest glimpse of what was going on. He saw Hopper look at Joyce, a flash of defiance in her eyes as she gestured towards the door quelling any ideas Hopper had of trying to force her to go somewhere safe. He never _had _won that argument.

Hopper opened the door, a hand feeling the gun on his belt, ready –

“Good evening,” a man said. “My name’s Frederic Bateman, I’m here with the FBI. This is my partner, Harrison Kent.”

A badge flashed in front of Hopper’s face, Hopper’s eyes following it as it travelled through the air.

“Is this the residence of William Byers?” the man – _Bateman _– asked. Despite the fact that he seemed American, there was something strange about him, something about the way he spoke that Jonathan couldn’t quite put his finger on – something that had Jonathan convinced that this man was about as close to the Bureau as Nancy was to Pablo Escobar.

“Uh – can I see that ID again?” Hopper asked.

Bateman pursed his lips before handing the ID over to him. Hopper studied it, running his thumb over the shield. Jonathan got the impression that he was playing for time.

“We only want to speak to Mr Byers about the night at the Starcourt Mall,” Bateman said. “Just to confirm some details.”

Hopper gave a small smile. “I get it, you’re just dotting a few ‘I’s and crossing a few ‘T’s, right?”

“Something like that,” Bateman said with a cold smile.

Hopper nodded. “That’s an interesting accent, by the way,” he said, immediately highlighting _exactly _what Jonathan’s problem was with Bateman’s voice. “Where’s it from?”

There was a pause as Hopper held onto the ID, looking straight at Bateman. Joyce’s eyes flashed towards the bat, still propped up in the living room by the door…

Jonathan could hear his heartbeat counting the seconds, each beat coming sooner after the last.

_One. Two. Three. Four –_

_BANG!_

Bateman had pulled out a gun, the draw mere milliseconds faster than Hopper’s as Hopper dropped the ID. The bullet slammed into Hopper’s side before smashing open on the kitchen counter. Hopper fell backwards, blood starting to spill out of his side – Joyce let out a cry as she lunged for the bat –

The man’s partner suddenly grabbed Joyce by the hair, forcing her back. Jonathan saw red – he burst out of the room with a shout and charged at the man who had his mom’s hair in his fist – spinning her around against the wall as Lonnie had done _so many times – _Jonathan barely saw Hopper go for his gun –

Both Jonathan and Hopper stopped in their tracks as Bateman’s partner pressed a gun against the back of her head. Joyce struggled, her arms struggling to wrap around the back of her head and find any kind of grip on the man’s wrist –

“I am going to ask you this once,” Bateman said, any pretence of an American accent dropping in favour of a thick Russian accent. “Where is Eleven?”

The name chilled Jonathan’s blood. He could feel his heartbeat rise, each thud in his chest sending ice into every part of his body – _they knew her name…_

The door behind him opened a fraction wider, and Jonathan saw Hopper’s eyes widen as he saw the girl step out of the room. Jonathan glanced over his shoulder, his jaw dropping as he frantically shook his head, _pleading _her not to do what she was doing.

“Here,” said Max.

-:-

Billy felt his stomach drop at the sound of the gunshot. He sprinted up the last of the driveway at full pelt – his already protesting muscles screaming their agony – but for all the attention he was paying them, they could have been moths against a lightbulb.

Steve was a foot or two ahead of him, spurred on by the same things that drove Billy to push himself – only if anything, far more intensely. So it surprised Billy when Steve slowed to a halt, hidden in the treeline.

The scene before them could have been ripped straight from their nightmares. They saw the silhouette of Volkov standing just inside the doorway wearing a suit, a gun levelled straight at Max. Through the open door, they could see Hopper lying on the floor with blood on his side. From their vantage point, Billy could see two more men dressed in uniforms identical to their own, one at each corner of the house.

“There will probably be a couple more round the back,” Steve breathed. “Give me a minute to get there, we’ll take them out. Then, once we’ve dealt with them, you go in the front, I’ll go in the back. Okay?”

Billy nodded, and Steve slipped away into the dark, pulling up his hood and mask as he went. Billy did the same as he watched. He felt his heart start to beat faster as he watched the situation unfolding before him.

-:-

“What are you _doing?_” Hopper growled at Max from the floor. The bullet had grazed his side, but it wasn’t enough to put him completely out of action – no matter _how _much it hurt to have his skin ripped open against the rib by something travelling twice as fast as the average plane. That said, the gun pressed against the back of Joyce’s head was more than enough of a deterrent for Hopper.

Max noticed the careful avoidance of using her name. Hopper wasn’t _happy _about it, but if there was a chance that she could keep El safe, he wasn’t in a position to stop her. Not with Joyce on the wrong end of a gun – not with a bullet wound against his side.

The man – she sincerely doubted his name was Frederic Bateman – looked at her like a hungry wildcat.

“So _you _are the famous Eleven,” he breathed. “We have heard a _lot _about you from an old friend of yours.”

“He _wasn’t _my friend,” Max spat. Because _if _they were telling the truth – if Billy _was _with them, then he wasn’t _Billy. _That monster would _never _be Billy.

“So quick to judge,” the man gave her a smile. “Perhaps you should be kinder to him. I was never there, but I heard stories of how he _screamed…_”

The words sent ice flooding into Max’s stomach. _They’d hurt him – they’d hurt Billy –_

“You _bastard!_” she screamed, flinging herself at him.

-:-

Billy had to clap a hand over his mouth to stop a gasp escaping as he watched Max throw herself at Volkov. The man caught the slight fourteen-year-old girl, a hand hefting her up by the neck, watching as she gasped for air.

Billy felt something shift inside him. He couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

-:-

The man almost lazily grabbed Max’s wrist, pushing her sleeve down as he checked her wrist.

“Very _brave _of you to lie like that,” the man said. “I hope Eleven _knows _she has a good friend in you. Still, I will ask this once more. _Where is she?_”

Max’s toes were barely touching the ground as she gasped for air. The man looked over his shoulder as he turned back towards Hopper, his grip tightening around Max’s throat. The man almost seemed _amused _by the horrified expressions on Hopper and Joyce’s faces – Joyce started struggling harder against the man who still had her pinned against the wall – Hopper looked like he wanted nothing more than to slowly disembowel the man holding Max –

“_Let go of her, you son of a bitch!_” Hopper was yelling.

“Should I break her neck?” the man said, almost amused – Max saw spots dance over her vision as he tightened his grip –

She distantly heard Lucas screaming her name – there were other screams – the noise was intensifying –

Everything changed in a heartbeat.

Something crashed into the side of the man holding her, sending her crashing to the floor. The pressure around her neck abated as she saw someone in black standing between her and the man who had choked her – for the first time, the man looked surprised – no longer in control – the man holding Joyce took the gun away from her head and pointed it at the figure in black who stood between them, pushing back a hood and mask, sending silent shockwaves through the room as Max took in the face that she had longed to see for eight months.

“Get away from my sister,” Billy snarled.

The man aimed the gun at Billy. Billy grabbed it, twisting it to the side and pressing his finger against the trigger. The bullet burst through the window, shattering it –

Max suddenly felt hands on her shoulders and jolted as she turned to find herself looking at Lucas.

“Max – are you _okay?_” he asked. “Come on – let’s go-”

But Max _couldn’t_ – not with Billy right there – not with Billy risking his life for her like this –

A second gunshot rang out through the room as Hopper finally pushed himself up into a position where he could aim a gun at the man holding Joyce, using his momentary distraction by the sudden arrival of Billy to his advantage. The man fell like a ragdoll and Joyce finally pushed herself away from the wall to turn to Jonathan.

“Get your brother – just _get out of here!_”

“Mom, I’m not leaving you-”

“We’ll be right behind you,” Joyce said, dropping down beside Hopper. “Take El, take Will, just _get out!_”

Jonathan took one last look at the scene – Billy finally succeeded in getting the gun out of the man’s grip and sending it careening towards the floor in time for the man to finally get a hit in against Billy –

Someone grabbed his arm, and he turned to see Nancy dragging him out.

“Jonathan, _come on, _we’ve got to go!”

“But the others-”

“Robin’s got the others – Owens will look after Hopper and your mom – we need to get El and Will out of here!”

“But-”

He staggered sideways as Nancy dragged him down the hall towards the back door. She had another hand on Mike – the reality of the situation finally hitting Jonathan as he grabbed Will’s arm – he fumbled with the back door –

They stumbled out into the cold night air – El, Will and Mike staggered down the stairs off the back porch –

_BANG!_

Jonathan wheeled around at the gunshot that went over his shoulder – a figure in black was coming towards them, gun in hand –

“Go – go – _GO!_” Jonathan yelled, pushing at Will and El while Nancy shoved Mike – they sprinted sideways around the house – they just had to get to their car –

A fist came out of nowhere, smashing into the side of Jonathan’s head as a man he hadn’t seen in the dark, pressed up against the side of the house, collided with him. Jonathan staggered sideways – he felt Nancy’s hand on him – he heard screams –

A gunshot shattered the night – Jonathan saw the man who had hit him fall to the floor – a third man in black was running out of the trees –

A second gunshot sent the man who had shot at them seconds earlier falling to the ground, unmoving. Jonathan felt dizzy as he grabbed at Nancy, hauling himself upright to face the man running towards them – if he could give Nancy time to escape with the others, that was all he needed to do –

The man pulled down the mask and hood covering his face as he slowed to a halt in front of them – Jonathan felt his jaw drop as he froze, feeling Nancy tense beside him, her hand on his arm tightening, nails biting into his skin through his jacket as they took in the man before them – Will was breathing hard – El’s breath caught in her throat with a hitch and a gasp – Mike seemed to have stopped breathing altogether – Jonathan was left wondering if he’d been hit in the head harder than he’d thought – he _had _to be seeing things –

Because Steve Harrington was standing right in front of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that took almost 300,000 words....
> 
> So... you know how I said earlier that I wrote this story because I wanted to write part 4? That is still technically true. However, that last scene and the next chapter are ACTUALLY the reason that I started to write. It took me nearly 5 months, 554 pages, over 296,000 words, and a PANDEMIC, but I literally wrote this story because I wanted to write these scenes that you're about to see, and then fitted a plot into them. Could this chapter have been two chapters? Probably. SHOULD it have been two chapters? Almost certainly. Is the only reason it's NOT two chapters because I wanted to give you this cliffhanger? One hundred percent, absolutely.
> 
> I actually CANNOT WAIT for the next chapter!


	41. Part 4 Chapter 6: Long Live The Kings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Roll credits!

“Are you guys _okay?_” Steve blurted out.

The question barely registered in Nancy’s mind. _He was dead – he was dead – but he was _here…

Everything slotted into place in her mind with the final piece of the puzzle. The Russian defectors hadn’t been _defectors, _they’d been Steve and Billy. They’d broken into Steve’s parents’ house because it had been _Steve. _Everything that hadn’t made sense suddenly became crystal clear, because they’d been _wrong _– wrong about _everything _– because Steve was _alive –_

A crash and a shout inside the house jolted them all into action, adrenaline screaming at Nancy that standing there gawking at her dead ex-boyfriend while trying to flee from Russians who wanted to kill at least one of them and would quite happily see the rest of them dead was perhaps not the _best _idea she’d had all evening. Steve seemed to think so, too, bending down to the Russian soldier that had tried to kill them – the Russian soldier that Steve had _killed _– he was pulling a gun out of the soldier’s holster –

“Jonathan, take the others and drive to Hopper’s cabin,” Steve said quickly as he straightened up. “I _know _it’s been compromised, but just – just _trust me, _okay?”

“But – the others-” El was the first to find her voice. “Billy-”

“I know, I’ll look after them,” Steve said, touching a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. Oh, and Nance?”

The name sent something shooting through her stomach, because _nobody _had called her ‘Nance’ in eight months – because the only person who ever called her that was gone – _had been _gone –

Steve pressed the handgun he’d just taken off the soldier into her hands, his fingers brushing against hers as she wrapped her fingers around the metal. She felt his hands – _solid _– wrapping themselves around both of hers firmly, giving her a reassuring squeeze that could have meant anything to him, but to her felt like a confirmation.

_It’s me. I’m alive. I’m here. I’m real._

“Look after them, okay?” he said, giving her a shadow of the grin that she’d been so used to seeing on his face, as though everything was normal, as though nothing had changed, as though nothing about _him _had changed when he’d clearly changed more than _anyone._

And then he was gone, his hands sliding away from hers as she found herself gripping the gun tighter, watching him turn and sprint towards the back door. She didn’t notice the others move under Jonathan’s hands until one of those hands found itself on her arm, pulling her along with him. She stared at Jonathan, eyes wide, feeling dizzy with shock –

“Nancy, come on, we need to go!” Jonathan was saying.

She shot one last look towards the house, feeling the gun still pressed into her hands, feeling the brand that had been Steve’s fingers on hers, the only thing that had her believing that he’d been _real, _that he hadn’t just been a _ghost –_

The truth crashed down on her like a ten-tonne weight, a building collapsing over her, because _Steve was alive._

-:-

Billy felt Volkov’s fist glance off his face. He caught a glimpse of Max, staring at him with horror in her eyes as he staggered sideways. Sinclair was with her – _why the hell wasn’t she getting out?_

Volkov bellowed an order in Russian, calling for the two men Billy had charged past less than a minute before. They burst through the door, one aiming a gun at Billy –

“_I’ve got him, find the other one!_” Volkov yelled in Russian. “_The girl went out the back – get after her!_”

Hopper hissed in pain as Joyce tried to ease him upright – the gunshot wound to his side hurt but it wasn’t fatal – Owens was there a second later, another hand on him as he struggled to get to his feet – pushing himself – _he had to go after El –_

“Joyce, get the others – get out of here!” he hissed at her, glancing over at Max and Lucas – at Dustin and Robin trying to get to them – Billy was sent staggering backwards towards Robin – she shoved Dustin out of the way over the couch –

Billy’s hand flew to the gun on his hip – he got as far as unholstering it before Volkov threw him sideways against the kitchen counter – Volkov slammed his hand down on the gun in Billy’s hand, pressing his face into the wood as he struggled to find a grip on the weapon.

Billy turned his head as he shot a glance down the hallway towards the back door – he could see the other soldiers chasing after the others –

“_Chief!_” Billy called. “The door!”

If Chief Hopper had any reservations about taking suggestions from him, they dissipated immediately at the sight of the two soldiers that were at the door. Billy struggled against Volkov’s grip as Hopper’s hand found his gun again – _he took aim_ –

The first man was sent crashing back into the house before Hopper could pull the trigger, a powerful two-footed kick launched from the doorway. The man hit the floor to reveal –

_Steve. _

Hopper froze for the briefest second, gun still raised. Billy spared the briefest glance at the door, relief coursing through Billy’s body –

The hand against Billy’s face eased a fraction. Billy felt Volkov’s distraction as they watched Steve fire off two rounds straight into the second soldier’s chest –

Billy felt his chance.

Volkov’s grip relaxed a fraction on Billy’s hand at the sight of Steve – it was all Billy needed to swing his knee up – he caught Volkov in the groin – Billy twisted the gun out of Volkov’s weakened grip – he pressed the barrel against Volkov’s chin –

_BANG!_

Billy pushed himself off the counter and spun around towards the hallway as Volkov fell to the ground like a ragdoll, most of his head splattered across the ceiling and walls. Billy spun around towards Steve in time to see the last remaining soldier recovering from the kick to the chest, a gun pointing straight at Steve –

Two well-placed gunshot wounds found their way into the last soldier’s chest. He fell to the floor with a thud as Hopper finally pushed himself to his feet, the gun in his hand trained on his unmoving corpse. The room was, at last, still.

A ringing silence engulfed the room as Steve, Billy and Hopper finally lowered their guns. Steve felt himself breathing hard as he took in the sight of people that he’d never thought he’d see again.

Hopper’s eyes flitted warily between Steve and Billy. Steve could see him piecing together the last bits of a puzzle that had evidently been bothering him for a while, sizing them up, taking in the larger implications of the sight before him. Joyce pushed herself to her feet, her hand on Hopper’s arm as a shadow of him, a look that might have been a smile on her face if it hadn’t been for the stunned surprise that parted her lips and pulled her eyebrows upwards. Sam Owens was the closest to a genuine smile, relief etched on every single one of his features.

Steve’s eyes travelled sideways towards Max and Lucas. Max was staring at Billy, who was looking back at her with a look of worry, relief and love on his face. Lucas was looking between Billy and Steve like Hopper, but rather than a small frown creasing his features, he simply looked dumbfounded.

Robin was stood in front of Dustin a little way beyond them. She seemed to be the closest to recovering the power of speech, her parted lips moving wordlessly as she looked at Steve with wide eyes, her breath catching in her throat in tiny gasps.

Dustin moved out slightly from behind Robin, his mouth open as the muscles under his eyes tightened. Even from where Steve was standing, he could see the small rise and fall of Dustin’s shoulders, the way that he wasn’t quite capable of holding himself steady, tears springing into his eyes as emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

Emotions that Steve himself was struggling with. He could feel his heart expand in his chest, swelling up like a balloon… even in those few seconds of looking around at his friends, that interaction of less than a minute of pressing a gun into Nancy’s hands and telling Jonathan to take them to Hopper’s, something realigned in Steve, his world resetting as he wondered how he ever could have considered leaving them all behind.

“Steve?” Robin finally recovered her voice, breaking the silence with a slightly breathy, almost whispered word, like she hardly dared to believe it, a desperate prayer that _this was real, that he wasn’t dead, that he was there –_

A roar sounded in the distance.

Any words that Steve might have said in response died at the noise, the spell broken. Billy and Steve both snapped back into action as they realised that this wasn’t over – _they still weren’t safe_ –

Steve turned back towards the back door, glancing out and into the trees. He felt Billy come up alongside him, looking out into the darkness.

“You got all the others that were out there?” Billy asked.

“Yeah,” Steve breathed back. “There were only two out there.”

“Two out the front, two out the back, and two in here?” Billy raised a sceptical eyebrow. “They only sent _six people?_”

Steve didn’t need Billy to do the math for him. He knew _exactly _what he was getting at. He turned around and went back into the living room.

“We need to go,” Steve said to the room at large. “There are more coming – this was just an advance guard or something.”

Billy walked straight over to Volkov’s body and searched in the pocket of his suit. A few seconds later, his fingers brushed against a small plastic disc and he pulled out a set of car keys.

“Hey, Steve, do you reckon these go to that car we passed at the end of the driveway?” he asked, completely ignoring the other occupants of the room, all of whom were looking between the two with a certain amount of confusion.

“Only one way to find out,” Steve shrugged before turning around to the rest of the room. “Guys, come on, we need to move-”

“_Wait-_” Hopper sucked in a breath that turned into a hiss at the injury to his side. Deciding pleasantries could wait, he cut straight to the point. “Can we _trust _him?”

He directed the question at Steve, who simply looked blankly back at him while Billy answered.

“I’m sorry, is _saving your ass _not enough grounds for _trusting _me?” Billy hit back indignantly.

“That’s not what-”

“Look, I’ll make this _real_ simple for you, Chief,” Billy snapped. “Either you can trust us enough to come with us, or you can stay here and be torn to pieces by those Demon-things.”

“Hopper, I’ll explain everything when we’re out of here,” Steve cut in, “but right now, we don’t have time. We need to go, and we need to go _now._”

As if to emphasise the point, a second roar joined the first. Any arguments died on Hopper’s lips as he finally nodded. The nod seemed to catalyse the others into moving. Owens finally moved to grab the bag that Jonathan had abandoned while Joyce slipped a hand around Hopper’s waist. Privately, Hopper was glad he’d already grabbed a bag of essentials and thrown it in the back of his Cruiser. He dug out his keys from his pocket and pressed them into Joyce’s free hand.

“You drive,” he muttered, a wave of dizziness hitting him. He could feel the damp material of his shirt against his skin around the gunshot wound. He looked around at Max, Dustin, Lucas and Robin – he knew by their expressions that he’d have an easier time convincing the monsters coming for them not to eat them than he would have convincing the kids to be separated from Steve and Billy, but that didn’t mean he was _happy _about it.

He watched Robin pick up the bat from against the wall as a nervous energy seemed to charge the air. Hopper looked over at her, eyes filled with worry.

“Robin,” he muttered, catching her attention before looking pointedly at Billy’s retreating back as it walked out the door. “Stay with them. Don’t be afraid to use that if you need to.”

She wasn’t given a chance to reply as the roars beyond the house turned from intermittent roars to a cacophony, constantly getting louder and louder – _they were getting closer –_

“Go!” Steve said urgently, feeling the gun in his hand as he started ushering the others out of the door.

Billy, just beyond the door, turned around at Steve’s shout. “Steve, what are you-”

“I’ll be right behind you, just _go!_” he yelled.

“Steve-” Robin gasped – _she couldn’t just leave him – not again –_

A hand found its way onto her arm and pulled her away. She turned to see Billy tugging her away from the door –

“He’ll be okay, he can handle himself,” Billy hissed. “Now for fuck’s sake, _run!_”

A gunshot sounded inside the house – she found her legs carrying her away as she saw Joyce, Sam and Hopper pile into Hopper’s Cruiser – they sprinted the rest of the way down the driveway as the gunshots kept sounding in the distance –

She threw a glance over her shoulder as the gunshots stopped. The hand that had never left her arm was still pulling her, tugging her towards the black four-by-four at the end of the driveway – but she couldn’t focus on where she was going – not until she saw –

The silhouette of Steve emerged from the house just as they reached the car. Billy frantically fumbled with the lock – the catch released, he flung the bag off his shoulder and into the car, he was in the driver’s seat, starting the engine –

Robin found herself counting the others into the back seat of the car – _Max – Lucas – Dustin – _before she flung open the passenger side door and climbed in. Billy was yet to shut his door as he turned around to look at the silhouette of Steve, still pelting down the driveway –

“_Any time this century, Harrington!_” Billy called out.

Steve’s hand was on the trunk, flinging open the hatchback and climbing inside just as something burst out of the door to the Byers’ place. Robin’s eyes widened as an otherworldly scream ripped through the night. She turned in her seat to see a pale silhouette, bigger than a man, every aspect of it stretched, its face opened up into a flower of teeth.

She would never admit it, but Robin was secretly pleased that Billy Hargrove, infamous for his reckless love of speeding, was behind the wheel when the car roared into life out of the drive behind Hopper’s Cruiser.

“Dustin,” Steve said as he slung the flamethrower off his shoulder. “Radio Mrs Byers. Tell them to make for Hopper’s cabin.”

“Hopper’s cabin’s been compromised,” Lucas pointed out.

“_I know_ – just – just _trust me, _okay?” Steve said. “It’s where the others are going.”

“You got a plan, Steve?” Billy asked as Dustin worked on extricating his radio.

“The beginnings of one,” Steve said. “Just – drive dangerously, okay?”

Billy gave a small laugh, his tongue running over his lips. “As if you needed to ask.”

He floored the accelerator, closing the last of the gap between their car and Hopper’s. Joyce seemed to respond to the not-so-subtle nudge as she sped up, the cars easily breaking ninety miles an hour as they tore down the road. Steve felt his anxiety heighten as he saw three Demogorgons careening onto the road, their faceless heads turned towards the cars as they headed into the first corner.

Billy took the turn with far too much relish, steering into the skid as he took up most of the road behind Hopper’s Cruiser. The road was straight for a little while as it started to carve its way into the forest – at the far end of the road they could see the distant taillights of Jonathan’s car –

“Hey, kid,” Billy said as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Remind whoever’s driving the Chief’s car that they’re driving a police vehicle and we’ve got a pack of demon monsters on our tail.”

Dustin had simply pressed the button on the radio at the word _‘remind’_, trusting it to pick up Billy’s comment. A second later, Hopper’s gruff voice burst out of the radio.

_“Don’t think I won’t arrest you if you get us killed.”_

Billy raised an eyebrow out of the windscreen as the car in front of them picked up speed. Billy matched the increase in speed as they went into the second corner. Dozens of late-night drives told Billy that they were coming into a series of S-bends – it was one of his favourite roads to drive on in Hawkins – one of the few places he could really let the cars open up –

Which was why he felt a certain degree of annoyance at the realisation that Hopper’s car was slowing down – they’d caught up with Jonathan – the speedometer was dropping down to fifty miles per hour –

“Is Byers – is Byers going at the _speed limit?_” Billy asked incredulously.

Steve’s heart rate doubled as he caught sight of the Demogorgons closing the gap between them – they were catching up –

Steve snatched the radio from Dustin’s hand and all but screamed into it.

“Jonathan, I don’t know if you missed _the pack of Demogorgons chasing us_, but now is _not _the time to be worrying about getting points on your fucking _license!_” he yelled.

Jonathan seemed to realise this and started to accelerate, but it was slow – _agonizingly _slow – the old car had frustratingly poor acceleration compared to the far newer off-road vehicles – Jonathan seemed to be pushing it to its limit –

Its limit was not enough when a terrifying thud tore at Billy’s attention. One of the Demogorgons had caught up enough to smack the back of the car, but hadn’t managed to find purchase as Billy closed the last of the gap between them and Hopper’s car – he was practically riding the bumper –

“Steve, _do something about that!_” Billy yelled.

Steve’s hand tossed the radio back to Dustin before flying to the gun at his side – he checked the clip –

“I’m out!” Steve called back.

The cars in front of them finally seemed to be picking up speed – Billy pressed his foot down on the accelerator, urging the car to go faster –

“Buckley, there should be a bag by your feet,” Billy said. “Pass it back to Steve.”

The backpack was sent over the back seat and Steve desperately searched inside it – _a fresh clip – bullets – anything –_

Another thud accompanied by a screech of claws on metal snapped Steve’s attention back out of the rear window. The Demogorgon was just getting a grip –

Billy took the next turn violently, the sharp movement throwing the claws away as Billy slammed his foot down on the accelerator. Something clicked in Steve’s brain – an idea forming – a dangerous idea – if it didn’t work, they were dead –

Hell, they were probably dead anyway.

“Billy,” Steve said, barely restrained panic lacing his voice. “Yes or no: can you spin the car?”

Billy’s face screwed up in confusion. “_What?_”

“Can you or not?”

“Uh – _probably, _but-”

Steve dug into his pockets for the lighter he kept there as he fumbled with the flamethrower. “Billy, when I say _‘now’_, spin the car,” he said.

“_What? _Steve – are you _insane?_”

“Just _trust me, _Billy!”

There was a beat of silence as everyone in the car held their collective breath, before –

“Okay,” Billy said.

Steve nodded, fumbling with the lighter as he started the pilot light on the flamethrower. He caught a glimpse of Max, Lucas and Dustin’s terrified faces, Robin looking at him like she wanted him to be institutionalised – Steve turned away from them, a hand on the catch inside the trunk –

“Three…” Steve started counting, his eyes fixed on the Demogorgon outside –

The Demogorgon was closing the gap again –

“Two…”

Steve could see the others catching up – Billy had dropped the car back slightly for the manoeuvre –

“One…”

The Demogorgon was getting ready to pounce – its hind legs bunched –

“_NOW!_”

The Demogorgon launched itself into the air. Steve flung open the trunk as he pulled the trigger on the flamethrower – the Demogorgon was caught by the door swinging upwards – it careened onto the roof as a circle of fire sprayed across the road as the car skidded – he could hear screams of the Demogorgons on the road, caught in the fire – he could hear screams from inside the car – the spin was still carrying them forward – the flames drew a spiral in the road as Billy fought against the momentum of the car – the sounds of claws digging into metal as they tried to find any kind of grip –

The claws released as the Demogorgon on the roof of the car finally went flying down into the middle of the road, caught in the middle of the spiral of fire that was painted on the road – the car came skidding to a halt as Billy found himself gripping the steering wheel – Steve took his hand off the trigger as the Demogorgon let out a roar, trapped on all sides by the fire, its companions a way behind, screaming the pain that Steve knew was magnified threefold as they all shared the agony of each other. Steve yanked the trunk shut again as Billy slammed his foot on the accelerator, closing the gap between them and the cars in front.

A stunned silence fell over the car, the only sound the breaths that everyone was so desperate to catch as Steve felt his hands shaking with adrenaline.

“Is everyone okay?” Steve asked the car at large.

“Ask me tomorrow,” came Robin’s timid reply.

The radio in Dustin’s hand exploded with sound, making them all jump.

_“What the hell was that?” _Hopper’s irate scream erupted out of the speaker, worry lining every word.

_“Are you guys okay?” _Nancy sounded terrified.

Dustin finally found his voice as his shaking hands pressed down the button on the side of the radio, the only grounding thing he had.

“Mostly,” he gasped.

Billy felt himself shaking his head as he smiled, glancing at Steve in the rearview mirror.

“I can’t tell if you’re a genius or an idiot who just got really, really lucky,” he said.

Steve gave him a slightly stunned smile in the mirror as Robin huffed.

“He’s neither,” she said. “He’s a complete dingus.”

-:-

The rest of the drive to the cabin was significantly shorter than it could have been, the speed limit very much being treated as an optional guideline. Everyone seemed to be too stunned to talk as Billy drove after Hopper’s Cruiser. Steve fell back against the side of the car, his eyes closed against the world. Max was just taking in the sight of her stepbrother in the driver’s seat in front of her while Lucas watched her carefully. Robin looked like she was itching to say something, but hadn’t quite found the words, while Dustin had _no idea _where he would start. The radio resting in his hands was the only thing grounding him to reality as his eyes flickered towards the rearview mirror, watching Steve’s reflection, taking in the differences from a distance – _because how in the name of God could he look directly at Steve – look directly at _what he’d done _to Steve?_

Jonathan pulled the car up the small dirt track, leading Joyce and Billy into the shadow of Hopper’s cabin. Billy put the car in park and opened the door, running his hands through his hair as he felt like there wasn’t enough air in the world for what he was about to do –

The back door opened, and Max scrambled out of the car. She looked over at Billy, taking in every difference in him – from his hair to the scars on his face to the _smile – _that tentative but completely genuine smile as he looked at her –

A second later her face was buried in his chest, arms wrapped around him as she felt more safe and secure than she’d done in months – strong arms around her as she felt tears in her eyes. She barely huffed out a sob as she felt his hands on the back of her head, a barest breath whispering words at her.

“Hey, shitbird,” he breathed.

Steve clambered out of the trunk. His legs felt shaky as he stumbled out around the side of the car, a hand pressed against the window to steady himself. He saw Robin getting out of the car, her wide eyes fixed on him – he broke into an exhausted smile as she closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him.

It was hard to tell who was holding who up.

“You _idiot!_” she gasped, her breathy voice sitting several octaves higher than where it naturally sat. “You _stupid, fucking idiot!_ We thought you were _dead!_”

“I’m okay,” Steve breathed back as he leant into her embrace. “I’m okay.”

The sounds of car doors opening and closing around them faded into the noises of the night as the others filed out. Lucas was watching Max carefully as he got out of the car. Hopper’s heart rate returned to normal as his eyes found El before doing a quick headcount of everyone who had been in the car with Billy – _Dustin was still in the back seat_ – _that was okay –_

The tell-tale sound of a gun cocking shattered the night as Nancy finally seemed to find her voice for the first time since Steve had pressed a gun into her hand. She felt every inch of it as she crossed over behind the cars to where Max was still standing with Billy –

“Get away from him Max,” was all the warning she gave as she raised the gun to Billy’s head –

Billy’s eyes widened in horror and anger at the sight of a gun being aimed squarely between his eyes –

“_Whoah, _easy with that!” Billy yelled.

Steve’s head snapped up at the commotion.

“_Shit,_” he breathed as he pushed his way past Robin, running around the car towards the chaos. Max was trying to shove her way between Nancy and Billy, but Lucas grabbed her and pulled her away –

“Wheeler, what the _hell _do you think you’re _doing?_” Billy was practically screaming. “Do you even know how to _use _that thing?”

“Get away from them!” Nancy snarled.

“Don’t _make _me take that off you, Wheeler!”

“I _said _get away!” Nancy yelled –

Before either of them got any further, Steve shoved his way between them, a slightly worried look as Nancy found herself pointing a gun at Steve as he looked at her with his most concerned expression.

“Nance, it’s okay-”

“Get out of the way, Steve!” she snarled.

“Nance-”

“He’s _Flayed, _Steve!” she screamed.

There was a pause of less than a heartbeat as understanding about Billy’s less-than-stellar reception blossomed over Steve.

“No, he’s not,” he said in his most calming voice. “I _promise _you, he’s not. I saw that thing leave him-”

“Why the _hell _should I believe you?” Nancy hissed, tears springing into her eyes. “You’re – you’re _with him _– you’re _working _with him – you’re-”

She broke off as she glared at him fiercely, feeling the tears threaten to fall.

“You’re meant to be _dead!_” she finally choked out.

Steve looked at her understandingly – more understandingly than he’d ever looked at her in their entire relationship.

“I know,” Steve breathed. “I know, and I _promise _I’ll explain everything when we get somewhere safe, but it’s a _really _long story, and after everything that’s happened, it would really… _really _suck to get shot by my ex-girlfriend over a misunderstanding, so _please, _can you just put the gun down for me?”

Tears were still in her eyes as she gave him a burning look. She slowly lowered the gun, flicking the safety back on as she looked up into Steve’s eyes.

“Thank you-”

_SMACK!_

Steve’s head cracked sideways at the slap that Nancy delivered. There was significantly more power behind it than the slap she’d given him outside the Hawk over two years previously, leaving a red flush in his cheek that could have easily turned into a bruise.

“Ow,” Steve muttered –

Arms wrapped themselves around him, pulling him into a hug and Steve found his face inhaling the familiar smell of her shampoo. He put his arms around Nancy and held her tightly against his chest.

“Missed you too, Nance,” he breathed.

He opened his eyes to see Jonathan waiting behind Nancy, a disbelieving smile on his face. Nancy noticed the slight change in his grip as she let him go, letting him go to throw an arm around Jonathan’s shoulder as Jonathan pulled him into a hug.

Steve felt his breath catch in his throat as Jonathan pulled away from him as he turned back towards the car. He didn’t have words for them – any words he _did _have were beyond his understanding – he glanced over at Billy, who was looking at Max’s neck.

Large bruises were blossoming over her throat. It occurred to Billy that he hadn’t heard her speak since she’d been strangled by Volkov. Any guilt he may have had about sending the man’s brains over the Byers’ ceiling evaporated at the sight of what that _bastard son of a bitch _had done to her – he’d nearly _killed _her, and for _what?_

He pulled her into his arms again as the first words she’d managed since Volkov had strangled her finally left her throat.

“Is it true?” Max rasped. “Is it really you?”

Billy looked down at her as she looked up at him, such tentative hope in her eyes, like she didn’t dare to dream that there was a chance he could have come back. He gave her the warmest smile he was pretty sure he’d ever given anyone as he looked down into those blue orbs shining with desperation.

“Yeah, shitbird,” he muttered. “It’s really me.”

Dustin still felt completely paralysed in the back seat of the car as he watched Steve through the windows. He felt the choking weight of fear and guilt pressing down on his chest – _he thought he’d worked past this – _but Steve was _there, _he was _right there, _scars on his face and his hair cropped short and messy, the shirt under his jacket torn slightly – Dustin knew he should be _happy – _Steve was _alive – _a concept in and of itself so utterly, utterly overwhelming it threatened to suffocate him – but Steve looked so _different – _he _felt _so different – he’d shot a man in the chest _right in front of them _without a second thought – he and Billy had come up with a woefully reckless plan to get rid of the Demogorgons that seemed evidence enough that, if anything, he was _more _reckless and self-destructive than he’d been before. The idea of what Steve had been through in his absence – _not to mention what that man had said before he strangled Max about how El’s friend had screamed _– was only feeding his fear, pressing down against his chest so much that it threatened to crush him into the dirt –

The door beside him swung open and Robin’s face was there, looking at him with such desperate concern.

“Hey, Dustin, are you okay?”

_No. No, I’m not okay. My best friend has just come back from the dead after I killed him, and I don’t know how to make it right. I know how he was hurt before I ended up killing him, I can see that he was hurt after I killed him, but I can’t bring myself to imagine how badly he was hurt because of me, I don’t know how to make it better, and I can’t – I can’t – I CAN’T –_

The words raced through Dustin’s mind even though he could barely get his own breaths out, let alone any articulated thoughts. His traitorous mind seemed to do the work for him as he felt his breath hitch in his chest, tears that had barely stayed behind the floodgates of his eyes finally spilling out with small hiccoughs.

Robin didn’t seem to need any of his words to read what was going on in his mind. She stepped away from the door as she caught Steve’s eye.

Steve frowned at the incredibly gentle way that Robin called his name, her eyes flicking towards the open car door. He walked around the car to finally see Dustin, still sat there, looking blankly into space.

Steve gave Dustin a tentative smile. Dustin just looked up at him with _so much pain _shining in his eyes. Steve didn’t have any idea what to say – he completely forgot about words altogether as he rested a hand gently on Dustin’s shoulder.

Dustin leaned into the touch – _the touch he in no way deserved but needed more than anything – _he felt Steve’s hand guiding him out of the car –

Dustin fell against Steve’s chest as any last remaining measure of composure shattered. He clutched at the back of Steve’s jacket, knuckles white as he clung on for dear life. Steve’s arms were holding him up, wrapped securely around his shoulders as he muttered soft reassurances against Dustin’s ear.

“It’s okay,” Steve breathed. “I’m here. I’m okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

Dustin felt himself crumble into Steve, the tears coming thick and fast – it wasn’t right – _Steve _was the one who’d been gone – what right did _Dustin _have to break down like this? The anger that welled up in his chest at himself, a toxic swirl of agony as the guilt fed the tears that fed the guilt, round and round until there was nothing – _nothing but Steve holding him, an anchor in the darkness…_

He didn’t know how long he stayed there, pressed against Steve’s chest, Steve whispering white lies about how it was okay – about how _he _was okay – before the tears stopped. He was left choking against Steve’s chest, the reassuringly firm grip relenting slightly as Steve looked at him.

“Are you okay?”

_And what an idiotic question that was. _Dustin couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that, because people who are _okay_ clearly don’t break down in tears at the sight of their dead friend coming back to life. _Okay _people don’t freeze in the back of the car, completely paralyzed. _Okay _people don’t need the comfort of someone who may or may not have gone through Hell and back, purely because they couldn’t handle what that Hell might look like.

But once again, he didn’t say any of this. Instead, he opted for a joke, because he _was _happy. He _had _to be okay. He _should _be okay. He didn’t have any right _not _to be okay – not with Steve and Billy right there having gone through nightmares he couldn’t even imagine.

“You need a shower,” Dustin muttered.

Steve managed a laugh at that, drawing a small grin from Dustin. “Yeah, well, get used to it,” he joked back. “Because we don’t exactly have indoor plumbing where we’re going.”

This finally drew a response from Hopper. “And where exactly _are _we going?”

“It’s – uh – it’s a little way from here,” Steve explained. “In the woods. About a half-hour, forty-minute walk or something.”

Hopper simply raised an eyebrow at him, pressing a hand to his side.

“Are you going to be alright with that, Chief?” Billy asked, turning away from Max to come and join Steve.

Hopper gave a sigh. “It’s not like I’ve got a lot of _choice _about it, kid,” he pointed out bitterly. “So let’s grab the stuff and get going.”

Steve gave him a wry grin as he turned towards the car to get the flamethrower. Billy followed him around to the trunk, getting his bag from the back as he finally gave a small smile to Steve.

“I’m starting to see what you saw in Wheeler,” Billy grinned. “I mean, not my type, but _damn, _Steve. No wonder you turned bitch.”

-:-

“It’s not exactly comfortable,” Steve said as he led the way down the wooden stairs, “but it’s safe.”

He flicked on the light as Hopper followed Steve down into a dusty storm cellar. Steve hadn’t been lying – he couldn’t imagine a _less _comfortable place if he’d tried. It was virtually empty, save for two woollen blankets that were discarded in the middle of the floor, a pile of cans of soup in the corner, a couple of large plastic water bottles and a backpack identical to the one slung around Billy’s shoulder. Evidently, Steve had been planning on coming back here.

Hopper spotted a newspaper next to the bag that Steve had left behind in favour of the flamethrower slung around his shoulder, reading that now-agonisingly familiar headline about police reforms. Hopper looked around the room again as the others finally clambered down, taking in the broken radio lying on the floor, the batteries dead after blasting white noise for most of the day.

“Kid,” Hopper said wearily. “_Promise _me you’re not planning on turning to a life of crime after all this. Because you two are the _worst_ criminals I’ve ever seen.”

That drew a smile from Steve as Billy pulled the storm cellar shut and made to fit the padlock over the inside –

“Billy,” Steve suddenly caught sight of what he was doing. “Maybe… maybe leave it open for now.”

A flash of confusion crossed Billy’s face for a second before he realised what Steve was getting at. He nodded, leaving the padlock on the top step as he came down, swinging his bag off his shoulder and leaving it against the wall by Steve’s. Steve mimicked the movement with the flamethrower, propping it up against the wall before walking over and grabbing one of the water bottles and offering it around the room. Jonathan put the bag he’d packed down under the stairs next to the one Owens had brought from the car, the one that Hopper had thrown any essentials he could think of into before high-tailing it away from his cabin.

“Jim,” a voice came from behind him as Hopper’s wary eyes followed Billy as he went to sit down, grabbing one of the blankets and wrapping it around Max. Hopper turned to look at Owens watching him as he looked pointedly at the wound in his side.

Being reminded of it sent a fresh jolt of pain through it – where it had been a painful but manageable ache, it soared to the forefront of his mind. He closed his eyes against the pain as Joyce and Owens eased him back against the wall. He felt Joyce practically holding him upright as Owens gently peeled away the material surrounding the wound.

“Do you have a first aid kit or something here?” Owens asked.

“Uh – Billy-” Steve began –

“There’s one in my bag,” Hopper grunted, pointing at the duffel bag under the stairs.

Steve bent down, glancing over at Hopper to confirm which bag it was before finding a small leather case, a little smaller and deeper than a briefcase, that Hopper kept alarmingly well stocked with first-aid equipment. Given his line of work, coupled with a superpowered adopted daughter and a house in a hotspot for interdimensional activity, he felt somewhat justified in having everything from band-aids to surgical equipment. The only thing he _didn’t _seem to have in there was a portable defibrillator, and that was partly because he hadn’t found one that fit.

Doctor Owens did not feel that he needed something quite as extreme as a defibrillator, instead finding a spool of surgical-grade wire and the small, curved needle. He set them on the side of the case while he pulled out a bottle of antiseptic and a white cloth before cutting away at the fabric around the wound. Hopper glanced up at Steve, who was watching him with a sympathetic, if slightly pained expression on his face as he crouched down beside them, doing his best to shield the worst of the view from El, whose eyes were filled with worry.

“It’ll be fine,” Hopper reassured Steve.

Steve gave him a slightly pained smile. “I know,” he muttered.

Those two simple words sent Hopper’s heart sinking down further in his chest. They weren’t said with any weight, but they were loaded with more meaning than Hopper had ever heard in those words. Because _of course _the kid knew. Hopper could only guess at what the kid had gone through – the fine white scars on his face that were never going to fade telling a fraction of a story that Hopper didn’t want to know, but that he knew he was going to have to learn eventually. The burning question of what, exactly had happened that had led the kid to survive an explosion that _should have killed him,_ to leave him _gone _for eight months with no trace that he was alive until a few days ago – _because of course it had been him in Melvald’s, of course he had been the one to break into the Harrington residence using a key nobody knew was there save him, because he had been the one to put it there_ – carried more implications than Hopper could comprehend as Sam Owens pressed the cloth against his side, wiping away at the torn flesh as he barely restrained a hiss at the stinging sensation. Hopper had his suspicions of what had happened – of how Steve Harrington had survived, but what that _meant _for the kid – for them _all _– was truly, heart-stoppingly terrifying.

Not for the first time, Hopper felt his guilt like a gut punch. He _never _should have left the kid on that causeway.

Neither Billy nor Steve seemed to be in a particular rush to start what was undoubtedly going to be a long and harrowing conversation, however, and Hopper didn’t seem too inclined to push it – especially not when Owens announced that he was going to put in a couple of stitches to stop Hopper from accidentally reopening the wound. Apparently it had stopped bleeding on its own at some point either during the drive or the forty-minute walk from the car, but given that they were currently sitting in a storm cellar in the middle of a forest, he couldn’t blame Owens for not taking any chances.

“Hey, Steve,” Billy called over, still looking at Max’s throat. “Is there anything for bruises in that thing?”

Steve looked over at him blankly before turning towards Hopper’s first-aid kit. Hopper hissed as he felt Owens start to apply the first stitch, privately thankful that he’d insisted on keeping it well-stocked as he felt a certain amount of reassurance that the needle had come in sterile packaging until the ten seconds prior when Owens had carefully pulled it out. Hopper focused on Steve’s movements, keeping his eyes and ears on the conversation – there wasn’t much else to distract him –

“I – uh – I don’t totally know what I’m looking for here, Billy,” Steve muttered.

_The second stitch started going in – Hopper just needed to focus on something else –_

“I don’t know, arnica cream or something,” Billy was saying. “I’m not sure what’s in there-”

“_Arnica,_” Hopper hissed as Owens pulled the needle out, tying off the second stitch efficiently. “_White tube – near the bottom-_”

Hopper grabbed Joyce’s hand and felt her squeeze back as he watched Steve search in the case – _Owens started on the third stitch – _Steve pulled out a case of band-aids –

“Is this it – _arnica – _hey, Billy, I found it!” Steve brandished a small white tube with purple writing as Hopper finally felt Owens tie off the third stitch.

“Well done, dingus,” Hopper heard Robin say dryly as Steve got up to hand the tube over to Billy.

“All done, champ,” Owens announced. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”

Hopper raised his eyebrows as he gave Owens a withering look. Owens gave him a warm grin as he put a dressing over the stitches before picking up the various discarded packaging that had kept the equipment sterile.

“What’s the – what’s the _‘trash’ _situation here?” Owens asked.

Billy looked up from where he was gently applying arnica to Max’s neck. “Same as the bathroom situation,” he muttered before turning back to Max.

A confused silence followed that announcement.

“What?” Owens eventually asked.

Steve raised his eyebrows at Owens before pointing to the doors. “Outside.”

Owens’ face blossomed with understanding. “Right.”

Billy finished applying the arnica cream to Max’s neck, not entirely convinced that it would _do _very much, but it felt better than nothing. She smiled at him appreciatively as he rubbed her arm before standing up and leaning against the wall.

“So you’ve been… _living_ like this?” Nancy asked from where she’d sat down next to Jonathan.

Steve finally got up and leant against the wall, determinedly not meeting any of their eyes. “Yeah,” he muttered. “We’ve only been _here _a few days, though.”

“Well, then… where the hell _have _you been?” Jonathan asked.

Steve cocked his head slightly, a wry grin across his face. “Well, we were in _Russia _for a while-”

“_Russia?_” Lucas echoed, sounding incredulous as his head flicked from Steve to Billy and back again. “As in the _country?_”

“_No, _Sinclair, as in the IHOP,” Billy said sarcastically. “_Of course _the fucking country.”

“Billy,” Steve said warningly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Robin started, her voice sounding shaky. “Steve, how are you _here? _We _saw_ you – _I_ – I… I watched you _die, _Steve.”

Steve stared at the floor, scuffing the toe of his boot against the floor. He didn’t look at the tears in her eyes, he didn’t look at any of them. Hopper kept his eyes on the dark hair that flopped down over his forehead.

“The Gate,” Hopper supplied quietly.

Steve stopped scuffing his toe against the floor as he looked straight into Hopper’s eyes across the room. He gave a single nod, and Hopper felt his stomach sink.

“So you jumped into the Upside Down,” Hopper said wryly. “And – what? The Russians were there?”

Steve gave a small, humourless laugh. “No, they – uh – they showed up a bit later…” he muttered bitterly. “Just in time to save my life so I could help them with their _secret operation…_”

Steve looked bitterly at just about anywhere where there wasn’t anyone looking at them. Hopper felt a crushing anxiety at his words as he finally realised what the Russian soldier had meant.

_We have heard a lot about you from an old friend of yours._

“You told them about El,” Hopper said.

Steve raised his head just enough to raise his eyebrows and turn his mouth up, still searching for somewhere he could look that meant that he didn’t have to meet any of their eyes.

“Steve, _what the hell?_”

Mike’s indignation finally catalysed something in Billy. He pushed himself off the wall with a burning look in his eyes, anger rising in his chest as he came to Steve’s defence.

“Hey, you little _shit,”_ he snarled. “Maybe we should try waterboarding _you, _see how long _you_ last-”

“_Billy!_” Steve cut him off, finally looking at him, his eyes shining with anger and pain. Billy backed off as he realised what he’d said.

“_Waterboarding?_” Robin echoed, the incredulous horror on her face mirrored in everyone’s expressions as they stared at Steve.

Steve didn’t answer, turning his head sideways towards the stairs. He could still see Nancy and Jonathan’s faces turned towards him in his periphery, he could see El in front of them, eyes so full of fear and confusion – because despite having more experience than most in that department, she had probably never known that the different techniques Brenner had used to control her had _names, _and _God, Steve had opened her up to it all again…_

Hopper watched Steve warily as he heard Owens shift slightly.

“So is it a safe bet to say that everything you knew has been compromised?” Owens said, his tone sympathetic but still laden with the gravity of the situation.

“That’s probably a safe bet, yeah,” Steve deadpanned, his eyes still fixed on a point on the stairs.

Hopper’s eyes fell closed as he felt his heart sink, the tiny fragments of the story starting to fall into place, but there was still one part of the story he wanted to test for himself. He felt a heavy weight of trepidation settle on his chest as he forced himself to his feet. He felt for the pack of cigarettes in the pocket of his shirt and pulled it out. He offered the pack to Steve along with a lighter.

Steve didn’t meet Hopper’s eyes as he took the pack and the lighter wordlessly. He gave a small appreciative smile as he pulled out one of the cigarettes and lit it. Hopper noticed how his fingers were shaking slightly on the lighter, but he lit it without hesitation and put the cigarette between his teeth as he handed the pack and the lighter back to Hopper. Hopper offered it to Billy, who took it gratefully, lighting it with far more ease than Steve and drawing in a lungful of smoke before breathing it out.

“_Jesus fucking Christ, _I missed these,” Billy breathed.

If either of them noticed the tension in Hopper’s shoulders relax, they didn’t give any sign. Billy was relishing the taste of Marlboro Reds, Steve simply focusing on the cigarette in front of his face rather than looking at anyone else. Hopper sat down heavily, pulling out a cigarette of his own. Neither of them had visibly noticed Hopper watching their reactions to the lighter in front of their face, seeing how they’d react with their guards down to the naked flame.

Some of the knot of tension eased in Hopper’s stomach as he started to let himself believe that Billy – and, by extension, Steve – truly _weren’t _Flayed. He suspected, however, that the reality of what they were up against was going to be significantly worse. He kept his eyes on Steve, watching him almost try to hide behind the cigarette. The silence stretched uncomfortably, nobody willing to break it.

“Start from the beginning,” Hopper finally said. “Tell us everything.”

-:-

Calvin Powell did not appreciate being woken in the middle of the night.

He _especially _did not appreciate being woken in the middle of the night with a call saying that there were reports of gunshots at Joyce Byers’ residence.

He did not appreciate running point on the initial inquiry, Callahan sat in the passenger seat of his sedan, for no other reason than that the woman in dispatch had stated that the Chief couldn’t be raised. He did not appreciate Callahan’s incessant questioning about why neighbours had reported gunshots at the Chief’s girlfriend’s place. He did not appreciate the reality that he was probably going to have to listen to the Chief’s complaining for the next month after the inevitable fallout that was going to occur with Paul Harrington when he undoubtedly found out – something that he and Callahan seemed to agree on.

“The Chief’s a sinking ship if you ask me,” Callahan was saying. “He’s not been the same since Starcourt. The Mayor’s going to have his balls one way or another by the end of the month, we might as well cut our losses.”

“Phil, are you _capable _of shutting up?” Powell snapped. He knew it was unfair, but _really, _his temper was frayed to breaking point. It was late, he’d had a long day, and it hadn’t helped that the Chief had been MIA for the day before Joyce Byers pulled a disappearing act at lunch. That, followed by reports of gunshots at the Byers residence, did not bode well for anyone.

He pulled into the driveway and spotted the three cars still parked outside.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Callahan said slowly, “but I’m pretty sure that the Byers’ only own two cars.”

He wasn’t wrong. Powell recognised the green car that was Joyce’s, but the other two cars seemed to be a little above their price range. He pulled his own sedan into park, his eyes taking in the house, still with the lights on –

“Phil,” he said quietly. “The door.”

The door still stood wide open – Powell felt his heart rate rise in his chest as he felt for the standard-issue firearm that had been entirely decorative for most of his career. He pulled it out, training rather than instinct guiding his hands as he opened the car door and crept towards the house, Callahan following in his wake.

“Joyce Byers?” Powell called as he approached the door. “This is the police! We’re coming in!”

He stepped around the door and into the living room –

He stopped dead in his tracks at the scene of total devastation that met his eyes.

A man in a suit lay dead by the door, two bullets in his back. A second man, also in a suit, was lying in the middle of the kitchen, what had once been his head sprayed over the walls and ceiling.

“_Jesus…_” Powell heard Callahan gasp next to him.

They moved through the rest of the house, taking in the devastation. The doors in the house all stood open, dressers flung open. Two more men lay dead in the hallway towards the back door, taken out with bullets in their chests – double-taps by well-practiced opponents.

Powell had never seen anything that could have been described as a bloodbath before, but he felt that this certainly qualified.

“Cal!”

Powell wheeled around at Callahan’s call. He was pointing at something on the floor. Powell walked over to Callahan as he crouched down beside an identification card on the floor. Powell felt horror settle in the pit of his stomach as he took in the metal shield and the name of the agency that had issued it.

_Federal Bureau of Investigation._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... uh... this was the chapter I've wanted to write for as long as I've wanted to write this fic. Did I have a ridiculous amount of fun planning a mental car chase through Hawkins? Yes. Have I overindulged myself planning the scene where Steve FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY shows up to save them all? Also yes. Have I been mapping out EVERY SINGLE ONE of their reunions for the last 5 months so many times that I forgot half of the best alternatives? Absolutely.
> 
> Next chapter features a certain amount of realisations that I've been setting up since part 2, so I might need to go back and have a cheeky re-read to remind myself what I did, as well as some proper character bonding moments because I feel like I've earned them, okay?
> 
> Also, you may have noticed that I actually started replying to comments with some degree of dedication. I have not been abducted and replaced by an alien, I was simply completely blown away by the response last chapter had. Like seriously, I knew you guys were excited for that moment, I wasn't quite prepared for THAT MUCH excitement... I hope you guys enjoy this chapter as much, no matter how batshit crazy it got at times!


	42. Part 4 Chapter 7: Made In Russia

Steve had no intention of telling them everything.

He couldn’t bear to look at _any _of them – to see the pity in their eyes – pity he hardly felt that he deserved. He couldn’t handle the horror in their faces. There were things that they needed to know, certainly, but there was _absolutely no way _that Steve was going to go into details about certain subjects. The innocence of the kids had already been shattered enough – he didn’t want to completely obliterate it.

He recounted his perspective of the fateful day where he’d ended up in the Upside Down, starting from where he’d told Hopper to go. He _hated _thinking about that day. Even what he’d said to Hopper felt like a bad joke in hindsight.

_Go. Finish this._

They hadn’t finished anything. Hell, that had only been the beginning.

He’d _hoped _to get slightly further in the story before the first interruption, but _of course _Mike wasn’t about to let that happen. He’d gotten as far as waking up underneath Starcourt, before –

“So that’s where you found Billy?”

Steve broke off, looking at Mike with confusion. “_What?_”

“Starcourt,” Mike elaborated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s where we sent Billy through a Gate in the mall. You ended up going through the Gate underneath Starcourt, you met up there, right?”

Steve paused, frowning at him with complete incomprehension. “No…”

“But-”

“Let him tell the fucking story, Wheeler,” Billy sighed exasperatedly, crossing his arms.

Steve shot Billy an unimpressed glare as Billy shrugged at him defensively. Steve rolled his eyes before continuing again.

“Well, Mike,” Steve explained, still not quite meeting his eyes. “There were several miles of concrete between the mall itself and the secret Russian base underneath it, so _no, _that’s _not _where I found Billy. What I _did _find were the tunnels you guys abducted me to set on fire while El closed the first Gate_._”

He felt the air change slightly at those words.

“You mean… you found the Upside Down equivalent?” Mike asked.

“I wondered about that,” Steve said. “I’m not so sure it _was_, though, because I _also _found my old lighter there.”

Steve was met by Mike’s confused face. Billy finally huffed and rolled his eyes.

“What he _means,_” Billy explained exasperatedly, “is that he found his old lighter _working. _None of the other lighters we found in the Other Way Up had fluid in them, but this one was still working like a dream. He _also _ended up finding some working guns as well as that flamethrower he used to save our asses on the road.”

“We would have been dead if we hadn’t found those,” Steve muttered. “Well, scratch that – _I _would have been dead.”

“So… it was like nothing else worked?” Nancy asked.

“Nothing else from _our _world,” Steve explained. “Guns were a bust, lighters did nothing, _except _for what we found in those tunnels. It was like… like they weren’t just _doppelgangers_ of things from our world, it was like they were the real things that had been _left _there…”

“So _what?_” Nancy asked, her voice determined. “You think that you guys were somehow actually _in _the Upside Down when you went to set the tunnels on fire?”

Steve shrugged slightly, looking at the floor. “I don’t know.”

“But we never went through the Gate,” Lucas pointed out. “We never even _saw _the Gate.”

Steve chanced a glance around the room, his eyes never staying in one place long enough to meet anyone’s gaze, but he could see in his periphery Doctor Owens watching him, a scrutinising look on his face.

“So what happened next?” Owens asked, sounding curious.

“Well, I ended up going home,” Steve said. “Well –the Upside Down equivalent. I kind of set myself up there, kept exploring Hawkins, kept exploring the tunnels, since they seemed to be pretty damn useful, and then…”

He paused, trying to figure out a way to explain what had happened next.

“…And then a Gate opened up,” Steve said.

The air in the room shifted uncomfortably. Steve didn’t notice how the focus of the room shifted slightly away from him. He didn’t notice how he was no longer the only person in the room not meeting anyone’s eyes, how Max tensed up next to Billy and Lucas, how El shifted slightly.

“I don’t know what it was,” Steve said. “It was… it was _weird, _you know? It was only open for a few minutes, but it was the first one that was there. It was like… like the Upside Down was _unstable _or something-”

“It wasn’t unstable,” Dustin muttered darkly.

Steve finally looked up to the corner of the room where Dustin had all but been hiding. He had barely said a word since they’d left the car, he’d retreated into the shadows, choosing somewhere suitably out-of-the-way for him to become as inconspicuous as possible.

Steve looked at him, confused.

“It was me,” El finally muttered. “I opened the Gate.”

The shocked surprise that hit Steve like a freight train was all that could have brought him to look at El. His eyes wide, he stared at her in awe.

“That was _you?_” Steve echoed.

“We were trying to get Billy back,” Max muttered.

Steve was left completely dumbstruck as he looked between the two of them.

“It didn’t work,” Max continued. “Eventually we stopped, because…”

She fell silent, tilting her head uncomfortably. Everyone else in the room fell into one of the most awkward silences any of them had ever experienced. Steve, however, was still at a loss.

“…_Because?_” he prompted.

“Because we found out,” Dustin murmured.

Steve felt the atmosphere tense as he looked around the room. Nobody seemed able to look at anyone else. A part of him wanted to press the issue, but Robin finally caught his eye and gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“Well, that was…” Steve ran his hand through his hair, rendered temporarily speechless as he raised his eyebrows and shook his head slightly. “…But it _did _cause us to run into each other.”

Steve sliced through the tension that still seemed to exist in the room as he started explaining how they ended up working together, searching the tunnels before chasing down the Gate, where they’d come to encounter the Mind Flayer.

“Hang on,” Nancy asked. “Was Billy still Flayed at this point?”

Steve sighed. “I didn’t _know _it at the time, but yes,” Steve said.

“Why didn’t he-”

“_Kill me?_” Steve finished for her. “Billy, do you want to take this one?”

Billy shot him an unreadable look as he mulled over the words on his tongue.

“Byers,” Billy finally said, looking at Will as he sat by Jonathan. “_You _had this thing in you for a while, didn’t you?”

Steve could see Jonathan bristling against Will. Will, however, looked thoughtful, and certainly much less uncomfortable than Steve had ever seen him when anyone brought up the subject of the Mind Flayer. He nodded, his eyes watching Billy curiously.

“For you, was it, like, a straightforward _‘it was in control – you were in control’ _situation? Like, one or the other?”

Will took his time answering, pausing as he thought.

“Not _exactly,_” he finally said. “It was… it was more like it _wanted _control over me, but it took its time getting there. It was like… it was like it was trying to _assimilate _me, if that makes sense.”

Billy gave him a wry smile. “More than you’d think,” he murmured. “But, you see, it _wasn’t _like that for _me. _It was like… it still _wanted _me there. It still _wanted _me in there, like it could _use _me. Like it could _use _my… _God, _I’m trying to think of a way to put this that doesn’t sound completely stupid…”

He paused for a moment. “It was like it wanted my… my _emotions_,” Billy finally managed. “Like it wanted to _use _my emotions to get to Steve.”

Every face in the room looked surprised and more than a little confused.

“Wait, _what?_” Jonathan finally asked.

Billy rolled his eyes. “After the big monster in the sky showed up, Steve finally explained how he fitted in with all of you,” he explained. “Like… the reason why it didn’t kill Steve outright was because it didn’t really _need _to, and _I _didn’t want to kill him-”

Lucas scoffed slightly at that, a sceptical look on his face.

“You came pretty damn close that night,” he muttered.

“Lucas,” Steve muttered softly, giving him a knowing look as he shook his head slightly. Lucas fell silent, his expression dubious.

“Why didn’t it try to _Flay _Steve, then?” Mike asked.

Billy shrugged. “It didn’t _need _to,” Billy explained. “As far as it knew at that point, Steve was just an incredibly unlucky person who got on the wrong side of the Gate. But then that _thing _showed up, and Steve started freaking out, and he explained that _not only _did he know all about the Gates and the Lab and you lot, but also that he was pretty damn close to you all. So yeah, once it found out, you can guess who was target number one for mind control.”

Eyes flicked between Billy and Steve. Steve didn’t feel particularly inclined to pick up the story, leaving it to Billy to explain the trap that the Mind Flayer had laid for them. He couldn’t help but grin at the note of pride that crept into Billy’s voice when he described how Steve had taken to using a flamethrower on Demodogs like a duck to water.

“After all that, you _must _have realised he was Flayed,” Mike said exasperatedly as he looked over at Steve.

Steve shot him an unimpressed look back at him. “Well, _no, _actually,” Steve hit back. “Because it turned out that Flayed Billy is _incredibly _good at pretending to get eaten by Demodogs.”

“Just to play on your noble nature, Steve,” Billy grinned wryly.

“So what happened next?” Jonathan pressed. “Did it try again?”

Billy gave a bitter grin. “Well, after it realised just how _monumentally _it had underestimated Steve, it changed tactics,” Billy said. “It started trying to build up… some kind of _emotional connection _between us – some way to exploit Steve.”

“Like…” Steve elaborated. “Like how _you _all used your emotional connections to Will get through to him when _he _was possessed.”

Billy tilted his head slightly in concession. “Same idea, slightly different execution. It… it used _me _to get close to Steve. Got us bonding over our shit dads, didn’t it?”

Steve gave a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes as his eyes fell on the newspaper in the corner. He noticed the tense silence in the room, nobody willing to break it. He swallowed slightly – there was a question burning in his mind, but he had _no idea _how to ask it.

“_God, _that’s _one _thing I’m not looking forward to dealing with…” Billy breathed, taking a long drag on the cigarette.

“Billy, your dad _left,_” Max said quietly.

Her voice was little more than a whisper, but it could have been a shout for how it sliced the room. A ringing silence fell as Billy looked down at Max, his eyes wide, hardly daring to believe it.

“_What?_” he breathed disbelievingly.

Max looked straight at him, into those piercing blue eyes that stared at her with something she couldn’t name.

“The day after your… your _funeral_…” Max explained. “He… got into a fight with my mom. Shot through in the middle of the night. No-one’s seen him since.”

Billy held her gaze, his lips parting a fraction. A hundred meaningless placations danced on Max’s tongue, ready to try and soften the blow. Steve watched Billy warily, readying himself for whatever explosion was about to come –

Billy’s lips spread into a grin as he started to laugh hysterically. He threw his head back, falling back against the wall as he _laughed, _a manic sound that set everyone in the room on edge.

“Billy, are you _okay?_” Max asked incredulously as she stood up, frozen to the spot. She seemed too scared to get any closer, too tentative to move away.

Billy just kept laughing, tears creeping into his eyes as his head fell forward and he pushed himself off the wall. He reached out and grabbed her and pulled her into a tight, bone-crushing hug.

“He’s _gone,_” he laughed. “_Jesus fucking Christ, _he’s _gone!_”

Steve could see the alarmed surprise she felt mimicked on the room of faces, none of them having even an ounce of understanding of what it must have meant to Billy. Steve wondered briefly if _he _knew. Billy hadn’t spoken about his mom – save for the story he’d told about how his mom had left – but Steve wondered if Billy was thinking about her. Steve, certainly, felt a certain amount of relief on Billy’s behalf that the spectre of his father was gone – _gone… _The thing that had held Billy back in so many things in life, the thing that Steve had come to understand had poisoned the worst parts of Billy’s personality only through watching what Billy had become without him.

Steve could never understand the weight that those few words had lifted from Billy’s chest.

Billy’s eyes lit up as his eyes met Steve’s, his arms releasing Max. The light shining in Billy’s eyes was unbridled, unrestrained, as though Billy was finally, _finally_ daring to imagine that at the end of all this, there could be a happy ending for them –

Robin cleared her throat slightly, and Billy and Steve’s heads both snapped towards her. Steve noticed the slightest flush of pink creep into Billy’s cheeks as he looked down at the floor, while Steve blinked, the spell broken.

“So – uh – _yeah,_” Steve brought the subject back to the matter at hand with such abruptness that Max looked, if possible, even more alarmed. “The Mind Flayer was trying to master the art of emotional manipulation.”

“Did it _work?_” Nancy asked.

“Does it _look _like it worked, Wheeler?” Billy snapped.

Nancy gave Billy the same look of utter incredulous anger that Steve had seen her give _him _in just about every argument they’d ever had. “I don’t _know, _that’s why I’m _asking._”

Steve’s eyes fell closed at her words. She _still _didn’t trust him. He tried not to take it personally – if he’d found _anyone _from the Upside Down with someone who’d been Flayed, he was _fairly _certain he wouldn’t have put the bat down.

“Let’s just say it didn’t get the _chance,_” Steve muttered.

“What happened?” Nancy asked.

“I got sick,” Steve explained, not quite meeting Nancy’s eyes as he tried to vainly for a reassuring smile. “Turns out a load of broken ribs in the Upside Down isn’t… well, it’s not the _best _combo.”

Steve could practically feel the atmosphere in the room shift as his brave attempt at humour fell flat.

“Yeah,” Billy said bitterly. “That’s _one _way of putting it.”

“So being sick… it _stopped _it?” Lucas asked, frowning slightly. He, Mike and Max had slightly determined looks on their faces, each locked in their own ideas, unperturbed by the far more knowing silences of everyone else in the room. “Could we _use _this somehow?”

“You mean, like, give ourselves _immunity _or something?” Mike said, turning towards Jonathan and Nancy. “It’s like you guys said when you got the Mind Flayer out of Will – make the host uninhabitable, right?”

Steve actually managed a bitter laugh at this. He looked at him with a mixture of fondness and scepticism. The excitement died on their faces as they took in the knowing silence of everyone else in the room – from the way Nancy was glaring at them, wordlessly telling Mike to _‘shut up,’_ to Jonathan, who had a haunted look on his face, to Will, who was determinedly avoiding most people’s eyes. Dustin still sat in the corner, watching Steve from under his hair, his eyes tracking his every movement. Joyce’s eyes were closed, her breaths coming in determinedly controlled rises and falls of her shoulder. Hopper, like Dustin, was watching Steve, while El was looking between Steve and Billy. Robin looked horrified but was trying to keep a stoic look as her eyes never left Steve. Owens probably had the most understanding of what had happened, his eyes focused on Steve’s chest. The only sound was Steve’s humourless laughing, softly echoing around the room.

“How sick are we talking?” Max finally asked softly, as though she didn’t _really _want to know what had happened.

Steve managed another brave attempt at a smile as his eyes flicked over to her, still not quite meeting hers.

“Pretty fucking uninhabitable,” Steve muttered bitterly.

“He needed a miracle,” Billy said harshly. “And the monster in my head provided one.”

Joyce let out a soft breath that was slightly less controlled than before. Steve’s eyes stayed on the ground as he remembered the cigarette in his hand, taking another drag. He could _feel _Robin’s sudden tension at the action, even though she was at least three feet away.

“So what happened?” Jonathan finally prompted.

Steve gave another bitter laugh. “Turns out,” he grinned wryly behind closed eyes. “I’m not as sold on the whole _‘living’ _thing as I thought.”

The cryptic comment left a lot to be desired. Steve found he didn’t much care about the barely controlled gasp from Joyce. He didn’t bother opening his eyes to see the myriad of horrified faces.

“So if you’re not Flayed, and you’re not dead,” Mike asked, “what _actually _happened?”

“Well, once Steve was finished burning that thing out of himself,” Billy said matter-of-factly, “I got distracted by Max and Supergirl over here opening up a Gate, so I went to find it, leaving Steve in _pretty _bad shape. By the time I got back to him, I’ll give you three guesses who’d shown up.”

Hopper lifted his eyes. He looked between Steve and Billy, willing one of them to prove him wrong.

“The Soviets?” Owens finally asked.

Billy raised an eyebrow at him with a smile as he took a final drag on his cigarette, finishing it off. “Not as stupid as you look, Doc – uh, Chief, any chance I could get another one of these?” he asked, holding up the end of the cigarette.

Hopper gave him a weak glare before taking the packet out of his pocket and tossing it over to Billy. Billy pulled out another before lighting it.

“So – uh – yeah, the Soviets,” Billy explained. “They found Steve, I _assume _they saved his life because _God _knows how else he ended up making it, and the next time I see him, he’s a prisoner in a Russian gulag or something.”

“Wait – _hold on,_” Joyce asked. “They – they had a _Gate _there?”

Billy gave a humourless laugh at that. “They _have _a Gate there, no past tense about it.”

“But – but they _can’t_,” Joyce said determinedly. “They _can’t _open a Gate there, that’s _why _they came to Hawkins-”

“They found a way,” Steve said softly. “That’s what they were doing in the first place. They built one of those big… those big _laser drill _things in the Upside Down, and they built another one in the same place in our world and basically between the two of them, they blasted open a hole in the universe – or at least, that’s what Billy _thinks _happened.”

“It tracks with what Ozerov told me,” Billy took a long drag on the cigarette –

“_Ozerov?_” Robin’s voice jumped an octave in panic.

“Uh – yeah,” Billy looked at her, slightly caught off-guard by the sudden alarm in her voice. “Sorry – he’s a Russian-”

“_I know who he is!_” Robin all but screamed. “_He _was the one in charge?”

“Again, he _still is,_” Billy said. “Well – I don’t know, would you say he _still is, _Steve?”

“He’s possessed by the Mind Flayer,” Steve explained for the benefit of everyone in the room.

If Steve had thought he’d encountered a horrified silence before, he’d been sorely mistaken. The silence rang out like a bell as everyone seemed to freeze, hardly daring to move. The implications sat heavy on everyone as Steve’s words slowly sank in.

Robin finally stumbled back into a wall, her hands messing into her hair as she fought for breath. Steve walked over to her and wordlessly pulled her into a hug, feeling her shaking in his arms. Her breaths were coming ragged as she buried her hands in his shirt, holding him desperately as he gently pulled her down to sit on the stairs.

“So… let me get this straight,” Owens finally said. “This… this _Hive Mind_… has now infected a commander of the Soviet Army which has the ability to, in theory, open a hole between our world and… _the other world…_ anywhere?”

“_Jesus,_” Hopper finally broke the silence as he rubbed a hand over his face.

Steve found himself rubbing Robin’s back from the stairs as he shared a dark look with Billy, the guilt twisting in his stomach.

“And they’ve come here for El?” Mike asked.

Steve looked at the floor as he nodded once. The sickening fear that Steve had become all too familiar with started to take hold of the room. The stark reality of _what _they were facing laid bare.

“Explain,” Hopper said, his eyes still closed against the world.

Billy took up the explanation from there. He explained how he’d seen the Russians and discovered that they’d taken Steve, how eventually he’d made contact with them on his own, how the Mind Flayer had started working with Ozerov to interrogate Steve.

“What were they asking?” Owens asked, turning to Steve.

“Questions about Eleven,” Billy answered, watching Steve warily as he tried to deflect attention away from him. Steve still had a hand rubbing up and down Robin’s back, but he was staring into space, his eyes fixed on the floor as his mind was thousands of miles away, strapped to a board, choking for air.

“What did you _tell _them?” Owens pressed.

“In _that _session?” Billy echoed. “Her name. That _thing _got hung up on the possibility of others – you know, how they got to the number _eleven_, but Steve wasn’t making a lot of sense by that point.”

The eyes that latched onto him went largely unnoticed by Steve. He didn’t notice Robin slip her hand behind his back until it started rubbing between his shoulder blades, a mirror image of the movement he’d just been using to comfort her. He flinched at the contact, tensing suddenly, but eventually relaxed into the comforting gesture.

“Wait,” Lucas’ eyes went wide as he looked between Billy and Steve. “What do you mean, ‘_in that session’_?”

Steve closed his eyes at the question. He felt Billy’s eyes on him as the hand Robin had on his back stopped moving. He could feel her tensing next to him, terrified of the answer.

“We were there for months, Sinclair,” Billy said gently. “They interrogated him more than once.”

Steve felt his shoulders slip down at Billy’s words. He barely felt Robin’s arms wrap themselves around his shoulders, pulling him against her. He could feel her shaking, trembling –

“It’s okay, Robin,” he breathed. “It’s okay-”

“No, it’s not.”

The gruff voice snapped his eyes open involuntarily. For the first time since making it to the storm cellar, Steve finally made eye contact with Hopper, who was looking at him with a burning anger in his eyes. Steve knew instinctively, though, that the storm was not made for him. He held Hopper’s gaze warily, waiting for some reprieve.

“So the Russians started interrogating you about El,” Hopper said. “What happened then?”

“Well,” Billy said. “It didn’t take long for that _thing_ to decide that it wanted an upgrade.”

Steve felt the sudden conversation change jar at the room. He didn’t bother looking to see the reactions, he could picture the disbelief on Nancy’s face, the surprise on Jonathan’s, the way each of the kids would react from Lucas’ surprise to Mike’s scepticism. Steve braved a glance at Dustin, noticing how he seemed to be the only one not to react at all to Billy’s words, still sat in the shadows in the corner, staring at his knees.

“So the Hive Mind spread to Colonel Ozerov?” Owens asked.

“What? _No,_” Billy snapped. “No, it’s – it’s not some _disease-_”

“_Excuse me?_” Owens said incredulously, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “We studied this extensively, everything about it suggested that it was modelled _very _like a virus-”

“_Why did it not possess Steve, then?_” Billy cut through him. “It didn’t _want _to possess Steve. It didn’t _want _to go and live in someone who was in Steve’s state.”

Steve very pointedly ignored everyone at Billy’s words.

“So what you’re saying is that it’s more like a parasite?” Owens said.

Billy laughed. “Quite a _picky _parasite, but sure.”

“What do you mean by _that?_”

“He means that it left him when it took control of Ozerov,” Steve interrupted with a slightly world-weary tone.

Steve looked over at Owens, taking in his reaction as Owens looked between the two, understanding finally blossoming over his face.

“That… that doesn’t make sense…” Hopper finally said.

“It makes _perfect _sense,” Mike suddenly cut in with an unbearably condescending tone. “If you’re in some top-secret Russian base and you have the choice of possessing an American teenager or a Russian General, which are you going to choose?”

“He was a Colonel at the time, actually,” Steve corrected, finishing off the cigarette.

“It also helped that two soldiers were pointing guns at me at the time,” Billy said matter-of-factly.

“Wait, _what?_” Max wheeled around to look at Billy.

“So… this thing _left _you, Mr Hargrove,” Owens reiterated slowly. “When someone was about to shoot you, it left you rather than die with you?”

Billy nodded.

“So is it possible that this _Hive Mind _parasite could be limited by the frailties of the host body?”

“That was our theory,” Billy said. “I got the impression that it didn’t _like _possessing people. We even tried to test the theory once after we found out what the Russians were building.”

Billy launched into an explanation of how they’d been put to work mass-producing parts for the machine that blasted open the Gates, and how that had catalysed them to try to stop it. He explained how they’d engineered an escape from their cell to break the machine and kill Ozerov, how it had gone wrong, and how they had ended up in a cage to be fed to a Demogorgon. He explained how they had set the Demogorgon loose on the roomful of Russians before Stepanov had terminated it. He reached the part where Ozerov had killed Stepanov but suddenly broke off, hesitating.

Steve knew _exactly _why Billy was hesitating. Steve swallowed, unwilling to pick up the story, but words seemed to fail Billy completely. Steve took a deep breath in through his nose as he closed his eyes.

“That was the point when I realised what Ozerov wanted from me,” Steve muttered, breaking through the silence. “Why he’d let us stay in the same cell. Why he’d let us become – well – _friends._”

They seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement _not _to tell anyone that they’d moved on from simple friendship by that point, and Steve was not about to inadvertently out himself or Billy to a roomful of people who would already have more than enough reason to judge him and find him wanting by the end of this part of the story.

“They all but killed Billy,” Steve murmured, his voice little more than a low rumble that would have been lost in anything more than the soft sound of the wind outside, but the rest of the room was dead silent, all eyes fixed on Steve. Steve could _feel _them watching him, but he didn’t want to see their faces – he didn’t want to see their _judgement._

“They… they made me watch,” Steve breathed. “By the time they were done, I thought he was dead – I _thought _I’d killed him. It was – it was _punishment… _for what we’d done. For trying to escape. For setting the Demogorgon loose. For – for _everything. _But it wasn’t just that – it was – it was _more _than that.

“They let me see him,” Steve said, passing a hand over his face as he turned towards the wall, forcing the words past his closed throat. “They showed me he was still alive. I – I _begged _them to save him – they’d saved _me, _after all – and – and they said they _would, _if I-”

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, forcing back the tears that were welling up in his eyes. _He didn’t want to say it, he didn’t want to say it –_

“If you _what?_” Hopper’s low rumble pushed at Steve’s resolve.

Steve took a deep breath, hoping that would be enough to compose himself. It worked for the second he needed to start talking.

“If I agreed to work for them,” Steve muttered.

His voice was shaking as he felt Robin’s hand drop from him. All Steve could hear was the buzzing in his ears, he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes – _he didn’t want to_ _see them –_

Soft hands gently found themselves wrapping around his own. He knew they weren’t Billy’s – they were too small, the fingers too thin –

“Steve,” Joyce’s voice was less than a foot away, so _soft, _so _gentle…_

Steve forced it aside – he could feel himself shaking –

“Steve, sweetie, look at me.”

_He really didn’t want to – he didn’t want to see her face – he didn’t want to see what she thought of him –_

One of the hands left his own and gently touched his cheek, brushing away at a tear that had escaped his eyes. He flinched at the touch, his eyes snapping open involuntarily –

Joyce was crouching in front of him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. When she saw his eyes open, she gave him a smile, so _warm _and full of love that he didn’t deserve, tinged with sadness.

“Sweetie,” she breathed softly. “It wasn’t your fault. _None _of this was your fault, do you understand me? Don’t you _dare _blame yourself. I can’t… I can’t _imagine _what it must have been like… What you must have gone through, but you _have _to know that none of what happened is on _you._ You _never _should have had to go through that. What you did… you did it to keep yourself alive. _Both _of you did what you had to do to survive. And I can’t… I can’t even _think_ what must have been going through your head, but… _none _of this is on you.”

“She’s right,” Hopper murmured. “You aren’t to blame for _any_ of this.”

Steve looked down away from Joyce’s face, tears slipping down his face as he gave a bitter laugh that ended up just sounding hysterical. “You don’t even know the _worst _of it,” he breathed, his voice finally getting lost in the small chamber created by his body, hunched over, any sound that might have made its way out. Joyce’s hand that had been on his face fell back down to his hands, giving them a small squeeze.

“They didn’t _tell _me Billy was still alive until they asked me to _prove my loyalty,_” the words came out of Steve’s mouth with bitter sarcasm as he tilted his head back to try and stop the tears involuntarily slipping down his face. “I evidently _proved _it, because they sent Billy back to the cell.”

“What did they ask you to do?” Joyce breathed –

“_Please,_” Steve fixed her with a desperate look, fresh tears forming in his eyes.

She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes before opening them again. “Okay,” she murmured, backing off. “Okay.”

“What happened then?” Hopper asked.

“Well, things changed pretty quickly after that,” Billy picked up the story, the steadiness in his voice determinedly forced. “They started trying to make us into good little Soviet soldiers. Taught us Russian, taught us how to fight, taught us how to use all their little _toys_…”

He kept going, ploughing through the explanation of how Volkov had become their de facto tutor, elaborating on points that probably could have been glossed over in a determined attempt to get the focus away from Steve. Steve was barely able to hold himself together, his breaths rising and falling in a shuddering but increasingly controlled manner. Joyce stayed with him, her hands wrapped around his fingers as he did all he could to just _breathe._

“Eventually, I realised Steve hadn’t taken to his new status of _‘defector to the Soviet Union’ _quite as well as the Russians had hoped,” Billy explained. “That was when we decided to try screwing up their plans again.”

He launched into an explanation of how they planned on waiting until they got to Hawkins before destroying the machine. He explained how they waited until after the Gate had opened up so that they could get a reliable message to Max about the Russians before destroying the machine by reversing the electromagnet.

“That explains the message,” Max muttered.

“Yeah,” Billy shrugged. “Sorry it was so…”

“_Cryptic?_” Max finished, giving him a weak smile. “Yeah, it was _great _fun trying to work out what you meant by that.”

“What did he say?” Steve asked softly, finally having composed himself enough to actually get a word out.

“Just that there were _Gates,_” Max said. “Wait – you weren’t _there?_”

Steve managed a smile at that. “No, I was busy dealing with the Russians to buy him time to talk to you,” he explained.

“So your plan worked?” Nancy asked.

“Just about,” Billy explained. “We pretended to be on their side long enough to figure out what they were doing, then Steve made up some shit about there being some weapon or something, so we led Volkov and his men away before taking them down and talking to Max.”

“We then made it back to the Lab through the tunnels,” Steve picked up the story. “We found the Gate, but we _also _found the army of Demogorgons waiting right in front of it.”

“Steve dealt with that,” Billy continued. “You – uh – probably won’t be _surprised _to learn that his self-preservation instincts were non-existent at that point.”

Steve gave Billy a slightly sheepish look. “Billy dealt with the machine,” Steve cut in. “He – uh – reversed the polarity or something – I don’t really know. It set part of the machine on fire and we managed to make it through the Gate, but…”

“But a Demogorgon followed,” Nancy finished.

Steve nodded numbly. “And, well, that takes us to a few days ago, really,” he finished. “We found this place, we tried to find a radio to check in on you guys, ended up getting Max’s – what _happened _to it, by the way?”

Max’s eyes fell to the floor. “It broke,” she muttered quietly.

“No shit,” Billy said dryly. “Anyway, we got it receiving messages just in time to hear you guys discovered that the Gate was open and that you guys were all gathering at that house. Steve was worried that the Russians might go there to track you down, so we went along to get you out. Good thing too,” Billy added, “given that Volkov seemed pretty determined to choke Max to death when we arrived.”

A numbness settled over Steve as Billy’s comment trailed off into silence. Nobody seemed even remotely inclined to break it. Steve stared at the floor, his eyes closed.

_They knew. They knew what he’d done. It was out in the open. They knew. They knew._

Will, oddly, was the first person to break the silence.

“That must have been hell,” he murmured.

Steve gave a small smile as he stared down at the floor, only visible to Joyce, who was _still, _inexplicably, sat on the floor in front of him.

“We survived,” Steve breathed.

It was a terrible attempt at humour that perhaps would have been slightly better executed if Steve hadn’t been shaking quite as much as he was. The tears had thankfully stopped, but all he wanted to do was to find somewhere away from the eyes that he could feel on him. He didn’t bother looking up to see Billy’s withering look that would not have hidden the concern behind it. He could picture it in his mind’s eye well enough.

“You did,” Hopper’s voice was more gentle than Steve had ever heard it. “You did, and that’s what matters now. And just to reiterate what Joyce said, what happened wasn’t your fault. It isn’t on you. I know you boys have been dealing with this by yourselves up until now, but that’s only because you didn’t have much of a choice. Now, you do. It’s not just you anymore.”

Steve finally dared to look up, daring to look over at Hopper. The tinged sadness in his eyes that went just a _fraction _deeper than it did in Joyce’s seemed to indicate that he understood more of what must have happened, perhaps had more of an insight into the details that Steve and Billy had glossed over out of an unwillingness to relive them. There was something else there – something Steve couldn’t quite read, but Steve couldn’t begin to fathom it.

“The Soviets were _always _coming back, kid,” Hopper said. “We didn’t know how, and we didn’t know when, but we _knew _they weren’t done. _Something _like this was always going to happen. _But_ thanks to you two, we have a handle on this going forward. We know what we’re up against. I _wish _you’d come to us when you first made it back, but we can’t change the past. All we can do now is work out what we’re going to do about it. You boys did good.”

Hopper’s words rushed into Steve’s soul like the first drops of water that had slipped down his throat in the Upside Down. He felt the absolution offered to him finally letting the burning guilt in him die down, a cool rain on a wildfire that was threatening to consume him. He could barely speak, staring at Hopper with tentative hope, and relief, and _gratitude _swimming in his eyes, threatening to once again spill down over his cheeks.

“Thanks, Chief,” Billy broke the silence, and Steve’s eyes snapped towards him. The expression on Billy’s face mirrored almost exactly how Steve felt, but with perhaps a slightly more functional grasp on reality.

“Steve,” Robin breathed from next to him. She gently slipped her arm back around his shoulders, another one finding the small of his back and pulling him against her chest.

“I’m okay,” he muttered, finding his words at that. “I’m okay, I’m okay-”

“Come on,” she breathed, grabbing his arm in a surprisingly strong grip. “Uh – Hargrove, have you still got those cigarettes?”

Billy gave her an unreadable look as he tossed the packet of Marlboro Reds over to her. She caught them one-handed before all but dragging Steve up and out of the storm cellar and into the night.

Steve felt stunned, everything around him numbed slightly. The colours of the night weren’t quite as bright as they should be, he felt the cold of the wind pulling at his hair but not quite biting into his skin. Robin offered him the pack of cigarettes as she dragged him over to the crest of the hill and sat down. Steve took a cigarette out of the packet as he sat down next to her, one knee propped up for him to lean on.

“Uh…” Steve asked as he pulled out the lighter in his pocket. “What are we doing here?”

Robin smiled mischievously. “I felt the kids might appreciate it if you and Hargrove _didn’t _hotbox in the basement,” she said before her smile fell. “And I figured you needed some air.”

The change of tone from teasing to serious led to a lapse in conversation as Steve lit the cigarette. The silence that fell between them, however, was refreshingly comfortable, not the same scrutinising silence that Steve had endured in the basement, all eyes watching him, waiting for Billy or Steve to fill it with horrific accounts of their nightmare.

“Pretty shit few months, then,” Robin finally muttered, looking out over the hill over the stream. The moonlight shone down through the trees as Steve took a long, steadying drag, feeling the smoke fill up his lungs.

“Yeah,” Steve breathed, looking down at his lap. “Pretty shit few months.”

“You know, the Chief was right,” she said. “This wasn’t on you.”

“Still having trouble wrapping my head around that one,” he muttered.

“Steve,” she said firmly, causing him to look up and over at her. “It _wasn’t. _None of the _shit _that happened was your fault. I _know _this, because otherwise the Russians finding out about Dustin and Will is on _me._”

Steve frowned at her, confused.

“You’re forgetting,” Robin said, giving a brave attempt at a triumphant smile. “I was right there beside you in that Russian basement. _I’m _the one who told them Will and Dustin’s names. I know – not to the same _extent, _but I know what it’s like to watch them hurt a… a _friend._”

Steve noticed the way she lingered on that last word. He frowned at her – _she wasn’t _–

“I thought I wasn’t your type,” he muttered.

“_Oh _– no – _God, _no!” Robin protested. “No, that wasn’t what I was getting at – like, _at all_. No, you’re still… still _definitely _not my type.”

Steve relaxed slightly, giving a soft laugh as he took another drag on the cigarette.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure just about _everyone _in there thinks we’re up here doing something that’s _not _for freshmen’s eyes,” Robin continued. “Well – except for Dustin, he knows as well, now…”

“Really?” Steve asked. “You told _Dustin?_”

Robin nodded.

“And he… he kept that to _himself?_” Steve’s eyebrows shot up incredulously.

Robin laughed. “I know, I was surprised too, but…”

She trailed off slightly, the smile falling from her lips.

“He’s changed, Steve,” she said sadly. “What happened at Starcourt… _really _messed him up. He’s _quiet _now, Steve. _Quiet._”

In most other circumstances, Steve would have found the notion of Dustin being _quiet_ utterly hilarious. He’d never known the kid to stop talking, filling any silence with incessant ramblings on everything and nothing. Now, however, the words weighed heavy on Steve’s chest, the implications of what had happened twisting the guilt that had taken up permanent residence in his stomach.

“A lot of things have changed,” Robin explained softly. “Your dad’s the _Mayor _now – _that_ took everyone by surprise. He seems to be on, like, a one-man mission to fix the town after what happened to you. Been riding Chief Hopper’s ass about… well, just about everything, really. I’m pretty sure he blames the Chief for what happened to you – hell, I’m pretty sure _the Chief _blames the Chief…”

Steve’s eyes fell shut. Tears threatened to well up once more. His dad actually _cared…_

“Your dad was _devastated _by what happened,” Robin explained gently. “Both your parents were. We, uh… Dustin and I _met _them, actually. We offered to help clear out your room. We knew Max was doing the same with Billy’s stuff, so we figured we’d offer. Dustin claims it was to get the bat back so that it didn’t raise any awkward questions, but I think he just wanted to _do _something. Even if it was just a small gesture.”

Steve felt the lump in his throat choking him. He couldn’t speak – even if he _could, _he didn’t know what to _say…_

“Your mom took it as an opportunity to question us about you,” Robin said. “She’s – uh – no offence, but she’s not the _most _responsible person I’ve met…”

Steve managed a small smile at that. “What did she do?” he asked nervously.

“Well, she split a bottle of wine with me, even though I was seventeen and, you know, _driving._”

“_Please _tell me she didn’t give any to Dustin.”

“_No, _no, she didn’t,” Robin laughed. “She – uh – she agreed he was probably just on the young side.”

“Thank _God,_” Steve muttered, but there was no real heat behind it. Even the small anecdote was enough to make his chest feel too small, too _tight _to contain his heart, pushing outwards. He missed them, _God, did he miss them…_

“You know, all I wanted to do was to come home,” Steve said thickly, finally letting the tears roll down his face. “All that time, all I wanted to do was to see you all again. But then we _finally _got our chance, and…”

Robin leant closer to him, the hand finding its way onto his back as she started rubbing up and down. The cigarette slipped from between Steve’s fingers, landing in the dirt and going out against the frost-bitten earth.

“I was so _scared, _Robin,” Steve’s voice was little more than a whisper as the tears didn’t stop. “I was so scared you’d all hate me; I’d screwed up _so badly _and I didn’t know how I could _ever _face you again.”

“I know,” Robin breathed as the arm wrapped itself around his shoulder. “I know.”

“I’ve done some… some _really awful _things, Robin… I didn’t know why I had to do them, but I _did _them. I did them because I didn’t… I didn’t want to _die_. And then… then I stopped caring about that, but I didn’t want _Billy _to die… I sure as hell didn’t want to _watch _Billy die…”

Robin pulled him against her chest, letting him bury his face in her shoulder.

“There was a time, after I agreed to _work _for them, when I didn’t know whether he was alive or not,” he gasped. “I swear to God, Robin, I thought I was losing my _mind. _I didn’t know how long it had been, I kept trying to tell myself it had only been a few days when I’m _pretty _sure it had been _weeks, _if not longer. And when they told me that he was alive… _God, _I was so relieved, I would have done _anything _to get him back. I just didn’t realise what that meant until they asked me…”

Robin’s eyes fell closed, sick horror filling her stomach as Steve pulled away from her, tears still shining in his red-rimmed eyes.

“What did they ask you, Steve?” she finally asked, her voice unnaturally throaty.

Steve pulled his knees up to his chest, talking into the small space between them. “They asked me to… to _kill _someone, Robin,” he gasped out, tears still slipping down his face. “They put a gun in my hand and pointed it at – at this _kid _– he could have been _any one _of the kids – he could have been _Dustin, _for God’s sake… But I couldn’t lose Billy – not then, not after everything – I _had _to get him back, Robin, I _had _to-”

He broke off, choking on the sobs that engulfed him. He could feel the instant comprehension of why he hadn’t told them _that _particular detail, her horror at it coming off her in waves.

He felt her arms wrap themselves around him, pulling him back against her shoulder. He tensed against her for a moment, shoulders shaking under her hands –

“It wasn’t your fault,” Robin said. “It’s like Mrs Byers and the Chief said: it _wasn’t your fault. _You didn’t have a _choice, _Steve. You _survived. _You survived, and by some fucking _miracle, _you came back to us. You’ve been doing this on your own, but you’re with _us _now. We’re going to work together to fix it. We’re going to make them _pay. _We’re going to make those bastards _pay _for what they did to you, to Billy, to that _kid, _to _everyone._ Do you understand?”

Steve finally relaxed into her hold, his arms clutching at the back of her clothes, fisting into them as he buried his face into her shoulder and sobbed. She adjusted her grip, a hand finding its way up to his hair and holding him securely as he choked out the tears that he had been so desperate not to let the kids see – not to let _anyone _see –

“Steve?”

Steve pulled his head out of her shoulder to look over to where Billy was climbing out of the storm cellar. He pulled away from her, angrily wiping his eyes on the back of his hand – _God, what if the kids had heard –_

“Just wanted to check on you,” Billy asked, closing the storm cellar door before walking up to them. “Are you okay?”

Steve gave a weak nod as Billy rested a hand on his shoulder. “I was just telling her about…”

He didn’t need to say what it was – the understanding was all too apparent on his face. He looked between him and Robin, and Steve could practically _feel _the standoffish tension in him, as though he was ready for a fight.

Robin, however, remained entirely unfazed as Billy stayed on his feet.

“He told me _why,_ Hargrove,” she said softly, giving him a gentle smile. “I get it.”

She looked between Billy and Steve, giving Steve a reassuring smile as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“I was also telling him about what’s changed here,” Robin said to Billy. “You know, his dad became _Mayor_.”

Billy tensed. “We saw,” he muttered.

“And, well, you know about _your _dad,” Robin said. “I take it that was _good _news?”

Steve was getting the impression that Billy might snap from the tension if something didn’t give.

“You know,” Robin said, a gentle smirk crossing her face. “You looked like you could have _kissed _Steve when Max told you.”

_Oh shit._

Billy’s muscles visibly bunched as the grip on Steve’s shoulder tightened. Robin looked at his hand pointedly before turning to Steve, smirking.

“_You _didn’t look like you had a problem with that.”

Something must have shown on Steve’s face – a flash of horror, which, coupled with Billy’s most intimidating face, confirmed the truth for Robin. She burst out laughing, falling backwards at the flash of panic that crossed Billy’s eyes. Steve just felt himself grinning sheepishly between Robin and Billy.

“I _knew it,_” she whispered triumphantly, her volume dropping to make sure they weren’t about to be heard. Billy threw a cautious glance over at the storm cellar doors. “I _knew _there was no way you two could go for that long without getting laid _somehow…_”

Billy glared at her.

“You got a _problem _with that, Buckley?” he growled.

“Oh, _relax, _Hargrove, I’m not after your boyfriend,” she laughed, grinning at the indignant noise that left Steve’s mouth. “You’ve got _no reason _to be jealous of me-”

“_Keep your voice down!_” Billy hissed. “What the _fuck, _Buckley?”

“Billy, it’s okay,” Steve muttered quietly –

“_Steve-_”

“I’m not going to _tell _anyone, don’t worry,” Robin said. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“_Yeah?_” Billy asked dubiously, more aggressively than Steve felt was strictly necessary.

Robin, however, remained unfazed. “Hargrove, queers don’t _just _come from California or else get _made in Russia _with whatever sexual awakening that happened to Dingus here_. _Hawkins breeds its own, just like everywhere else.”

There was a pause as Billy untangled what she was trying to say. Understanding grew in his eyes and he turned towards Steve, who simply nodded in confirmation.

“Oh,” Billy breathed, deflating as the aggression left him. “Uh – I’m – I’m sorry.”

She smirked as she raised her eyebrows at him. “Wow, you really _have _changed,” she muttered. “That was actually _sincere_.”

“Don’t push it, Buckley,” Billy ground out.

“Billy,” Steve muttered, interfering before things could escalate any further. “Could you give us a minute?”

Billy looked at him searchingly. “You going to be okay?” he asked.

Steve nodded, his eyes closing as he pulled out another cigarette. “I’ll be fine.”

Billy responded to his brave attempt at a smile with a pat on the back. “If you need anything, I’m just inside, okay?”

Steve watched him go, giving him a weak smile as his head disappeared into the storm cellar before he pulled the door shut above him. Steve turned back towards Robin, lighting the cigarette.

“He _really _cares about you, doesn’t he?” Robin said, smirking at the fond smile on Steve’s lips behind the cigarette.

“Yeah, well,” Steve managed to say, looking over at the storm cellar doors. “I’d be a bit insulted if he _didn’t_ at this point_, _to be honest.”

Robin gave him a knowing look, quirking a single eyebrow, wordlessly asking the question he knew she wanted to ask.

“Shut up,” Steve said, unable to hide the smile that was spreading across his face.

“I didn’t _say_ anything, Dingus,” she grinned, that look just _far too knowing._

Steve couldn’t stop the laugh bubbling up in his throat as Robin kept grinning, the grin turning into laughter of her own.

“So you love him, then?” she finally said.

Steve looked down at the cigarette as he took a long drag.

“Yeah,” he breathed, nodding slightly. “I really do, Robin.”

Her knowing grin morphed into genuine happiness. He smiled back at her as they settled into a comfortable silence again, Steve feeling calmer than he had done in a _very _long time.

“You deserve to be happy, you know,” Robin said finally. “Whether it’s with Billy Hargrove, or Nancy Wheeler, or, even just on your own. You’re a good person, Steve. Nothing that happened out there changed that.”

His own smile slipped slightly. “It’s… it’s kind of hard to believe that right now,” he murmured.

“I know,” she said understandingly. “But you’ll get there. You _will._”

Steve managed a small smile, but any response he had was cut off by the sound of the storm cellar door opening. They both turned around, surprised to see Dustin coming out of the cellar, the level of nervousness on his face bordering on terrified.

“Hey, Henderson,” Steve said, giving him a warm smile.

“Uh – Steve,” Dustin stammered out, his voice shaking as he sounded terrified. “Can we – can we talk?”

A small frown creased the space between Steve’s eyebrows as he looked at Dustin. Steve could see the way his hands weren’t quite steady as he climbed out of the storm cellar, reminding Steve of a skittish animal with his jerky movements that seemed to come in short bursts.

“Sure – I mean – of course, man,” Steve said. “Do you want to come and sit down?”

“I’ll – uh,” Robin broke off, looking at Steve. “I’ll leave you to it.”

She got up, walking back towards the storm cellar and pulling the door shut behind her. Just before it closed, Steve stopped her for a moment.

“Uh – Robin?” he called out.

She paused, her head peeking out from just underneath the crack in the door.

“Uh,” Steve tried for a genuine smile, relieved as he felt it touch his eyes. “Thanks.”

She gave him a small smile back as she closed the door. “Anytime, Dingus.”

-:-

The midnight call to the house was the _last _thing Paul felt that he needed.

“Hello?” he didn’t _quite _grunt.

_“Mayor Harrington?”_

Paul frowned at the unfamiliar voice. “Who’s this?”

_“It’s… it’s Officer Powell,”_ the voice said. _“Uh… we’ve got a situation.”_

Paul searched in the recesses of his memory as he struggled to place the name. It clicked a second later – he was one of the officers who worked alongside Hopper.

“What’s going on?” Paul asked, a sinking feeling in his gut. No midnight call to his house opened with the word _‘situation’ _was ever a good one.

_“Uh… we’ve found six bodies at the Byers residence,” _Powell said.

Paul almost dropped the phone in alarm. The residual lethargy of sleep fell from his shoulders as he suddenly felt wide awake, adrenaline coursing through him.

“Who?” he asked in a voice very unlike his own.

_“That’s where things get interesting, sir,” _Powell said. _“Two of them are Feds. We found FBI badges on them and everything. The other four seem to be some kind of backup or something. Pretty bad backup, though. The Feds and the backup were all shot dead.”_

Paul’s eyebrows shot up. “And Joyce Byers? Her family? Where are they now?”

_“Gone, sir,” _Powell said. _“The place was cleared out in a hurry. Joyce Byers’ car was left at the scene, but Jonathan Byers’ car is gone. There were two other cars there, registered to Nancy Wheeler and Ella Buckley. We’ve reached Buckley, but she said her daughter, Robin was using the car. When we called the Wheeler residence, though, Karen Wheeler said her kids, Nancy and Mike, called to say that they were meant to be staying the night at the Byers’ place. Problem is… there’s no sign of them.”_

“Hold on, give me those names again,” Paul said, something stirring in his memory. “The names of the kids.”

_“Uh… Nancy and Mike Wheeler?”_

“And the other one?”

_“Robin Buckley, sir?”_

Paul remembered. He knew the names of the Starcourt survivors like the back of his hand. A wave of nausea rose in his chest.

“Check on the other Starcourt survivors,” Paul said. “Make sure they’re safe.”

_“Sir?”_ Powell’s voice sounded confused.

“Just do it,” Paul snapped. “Do you think Joyce Byers could have done this?”

_“What, killed two Feds and their backup?” _Powell asked. _“No… the family has a couple of guns registered to the address, but this was… whoever killed these Feds knew what they were doing. Like, they _really _knew. Every single shot was a kill shot.”_

Paul ran a hand over his face, trying extremely hard not to swear down the phone. “Okay,” he said, taking a forced breath. “Have Hopper meet me at Town Hall in half an hour, I want a full briefing-”

_“Uh – that’s the other thing, sir,”_ Powell said uncomfortably. _“We can’t reach him.”_

“What?”

_“Yeah, he’s… he’s not here,” _Powell said, his voice tentative. _“We’ve been trying to reach him on his radio, on his phone, everywhere, but… nobody’s seen him all day, sir. He’s gone.”_

Paul closed his eyes, his mouth silently forming the same word over and over again, anger coursing through his veins as he felt an unbridled inferno rise within his chest.

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… uh… it turns out I can tell this 300,000-word monstrosity in 6,000 words… I wasn’t planning on basically retelling the entire story, I was just going to gloss over it largely but I didn’t for two reasons, one of which is setting up something for the next chapter and the other of which is that you guys all ASKED me to show you some reactions…
> 
> ALSO – oh my God, this is so exciting and I can’t quite believe that they’ve done this, I was completely blown away by this – ibemandapanda has done some absolutely amazing fan art for this story on tumblr, it’s so gorgeous and wonderful and I discovered it completely by accident and I’m a little overwhelmed because I can’t QUITE believe that they’ve actually gone and drawn fan art for this story! Seriously, go check it out here, it’s amazing: https://ibemandapanda.tumblr.com/post/615231147737268224/long-live-the-kings-by-me4eva-sorry-if-this-is  
Also you should check out some of their other stuff, they’re a really talented artist!


	43. Part 4 Chapter 8: The Williams In The Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Vivid descriptions of a panic attack.

Paul walked into chaos.

He’d decided to skip going to Town Hall – there was no sense in dragging people half way across town every time Paul wanted to have a conversation, and he felt a lot more comfortable being close to the action, so he’d ended up going straight to the police station.

Every officer in Hawkins had been called in. The death of two federal agents would have been enough to bring all hands on deck, even leaving aside the missing occupants of the house, along with two, possibly three others under the age of eighteen.

_Others that they knew about…_

He was not looking forward to the call he was going to have to make to the Commissioner, but he knew it was necessary. They needed more manpower – particularly with their Chief of Police missing – and, quite frankly, if his theories about it were right, a tiny part of Paul was going to enjoy yelling down the phone with the grim satisfaction that _he was right._

“Uh – Mayor Harrington?”

Paul looked up to see a black officer walking towards him. He glanced down at the name badge on the man’s shirt. _Powell._ The man he’d spoken to over the phone.

“Officer Powell,” Paul said, offering a hand out as an introduction. “What’s going on?”

Powell gave him a strange look as he started walking through the station. “I don’t know _how _you knew it, but you were right,” he said grimly. “Every single one of the Starcourt survivors except one was meant to be at that house – well, we didn’t get a chance to check on Murray Bauman, but he’s out of state and isn’t exactly the type to leave a forwarding address. We’re following up with local PDs in Illinois to check on him, but based on what we have, we’re looking for someone with military training. Bauman was never in the military. The one survivor we _did _find was an eleven-year-old girl, Erica Sinclair. Callahan’s talking to her now, seeing if she knows anything, but she says that they were all hanging out at the Byers’ place.”

Paul nodded. “You mentioned that the federal agents brought backup – what do we know about them?”

“At the moment? Nada,” Powell said. “Maybe military, maybe ex-military, but nothing else. They had no identifying markers on them, no agency tags, no identification, nothing. They may as well have been Black Ops for all that we know about them.”

“Is it possible that _they _could have been the ones to shoot the federal agents?” Paul asked. “That Byers and everyone in that house could have run away from the shootout?”

Powell tilted his head. “We thought about that, but we don’t think so,” Powell said. “One of the kill shots – well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. It would have left a distinct blood spatter on the weapon and the clothes as well as the killer’s face. They would have had to have been close to get that shot off, and none of them have blood spatter on them that matches. There was definitely someone else involved.”

Paul felt a twist in his gut as they continued to dance around the issue. He sighed, leading the way towards Hopper’s vacant office.

“For now, you’re running point on this,” Paul said as he walked across the chaotic room. “Whatever you need, let me know. I’ll call the Commissioner in a few minutes to brief him on this and bring in more manpower. Money isn’t an obstacle – not with dead federal agents and missing kids. But right now, we need to talk somewhere quietly.”

Powell looked at Paul with trepidation as Paul opened the door to Hopper’s office. He walked inside, Paul following behind him. It was the only quiet room in the building, left empty out of habit.

“Sir, if the Chief comes back-”

“If Chief Hopper comes back, this conversation will be moot,” Paul cut across him smoothly. “I want to speak to you somewhere privately where we _won’t _be overheard. Because I think you know as well as I do what one of the more likely outcomes of this was.”

Powell didn’t say anything.

“Officer Powell,” Paul said darkly. “We need to be prepared for the possibility that Hopper is responsible for what happened at the Byers’ residence. He is romantically involved with Joyce Byers, he had the military training that you said yourself was essential for this, and above all else, he is not _here_. We _both _know he doesn’t like playing by the rules, and I think we need to look into exactly _how far _that goes. If he has crossed the line from upholding the law to working outside it altogether, and the Bureau was onto him, we need to be prepared for the fact that he may have shot his way out of the situation. If that is the case, I need you to be prepared to do whatever it takes to bring him to justice.”

“Sir, with all due respect-”

“Your duty is to find the truth, Officer Powell,” Paul said. “You would not be doing your job if you didn’t look into this angle. Whether it is to clear his name or to bring him to justice, I am _telling _you to look into it. We can’t afford to take chances – we have children missing. I _will not _let Jim Hopper be responsible for another parent losing their child. Do you understand?”

Powell gave a small, strained nod. “Yes, sir.”

-:-

Dustin felt more than a little uncomfortable as he sat down on the grass beside Steve. He looked out over the hill, feeling Steve’s eyes on him.

As for Steve himself, he looked a little calmer than he had done before Robin had taken him outside, but by no stretch of the imagination did he look like he was _okay_. The words danced on the tip of Dustin’s tongue – some meaningless placation, or else a question that didn’t _need _an answer, but would just fill the silence, but Dustin felt that it would probably be a little insulting to Steve to say that everything was all okay, or that it would work out in the end.

Steve took a drag on the cigarette and exhaled it out over the hill. Dustin looked at it, alarm flagging up in his brain – Steve had mentioned being sick from broken ribs – Dustin knew the complications, the _life-threatening _complications that Steve and Billy had alluded to – it couldn’t be _good _for Steve to be smoking –

Once again, the words danced on the tip of Dustin’s tongue, but they didn’t fall from his lips. He was held back – Steve had, to use Will’s terminology, been through hell – quite literally. Dustin didn’t feel it was his place to deny him a simple pleasure that looked like it was calming for him.

Dustin watched him from under his fringe as Steve looked back out over the hill. In the years of knowing him – of knowing _of _him before they ever properly met at a vending machine outside the hospital waiting room in November ’83, Steve had never been so completely _unapproachable. _Everything about him felt foreign – from what Dustin had had a chance to understand from what Steve and Billy had told them, Steve had _changed. _By rights, he _should _have died ten times over. By what Steve had said, there were times when Steve would have preferred it.

Dustin may as well have been sitting next to a stranger.

_God, what was he doing here? _Steve didn’t need to deal with Dustin’s problems – he had _more _than enough of his own. It was selfish to come here and ask Steve to talk to him – to listen to his issues – not after what he’d been through – _what Dustin had let him go through _–

Steve gave a small, fond laugh next to him. Dustin looked up at him as Steve held the cigarette between his fingers. Despite the laughter on his face – genuine warmth lighting up his features in a way so different to the bitter laughs Steve had given earlier to try and deflect from the horrors he’d been describing – Dustin could still see Steve’s eyes, rimmed red, his cheeks still blotchy and flushed from the tears he’d shed when he and Robin had been discussing… _whatever _they’d been discussing.

“I wasn’t sure I _believed _Robin when she said you’d become _quiet,_” Steve said, a genuine smile creasing his eyes as he looked down at Dustin.

Dustin met his eyes, staring up into those brown eyes he’d wanted to see for _so long. _Steve held his gaze, a slightly penetrating look as Steve softened the grin, a seriousness in his eyes that Dustin had never seen there before.

“I missed you, man,” Steve said.

“I… I missed you, too,” Dustin finally managed, his voice barely more than a whisper. It didn’t seem like enough – it was nowhere _near _enough to convey the gaping chasm in his chest that had been blown open when Hopper had stood outside the elevator in Starcourt, shattering Dustin’s grip on the world with two words. He didn’t know where to start – he didn’t know what he wanted to say –

Steve put a hand on Dustin’s shoulder, squeezing it slightly. His hand froze suddenly, though. Dustin looked up at Steve, seeing a small frown crease the space between his eyebrows. Steve wasn’t looking at his face anymore – his attention was entirely on –

“Is that my jacket?” Steve suddenly asked.

Panic flooded into Dustin – _what was he doing – he was wearing Steve’s jacket – it wasn’t _his_ to wear – it had never been his to take – he was only wearing it out of habit –_

He frantically started pulling it off his shoulders –

“Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Steve asked. “You’re going to _freeze _out here.”

Dustin looked up at him incredulously, the jacket still half on his arms.

“It’s your jacket,” Dustin said dumbly. “I shouldn’t-”

Steve gave another fond laugh. “Dustin, it’s _fine, _keep it,” he said, ruffling his hair affectionately – a gesture that was so _familiar,_ even without the hat that usually sat on his head that kept Dustin’s wild curls in place. Dustin wasn’t quite sure when he’d stopped wearing hats as a matter of course, but then again, he wasn’t quite sure when he’d become _quiet, _either_._

“It looks good on you,” Steve commented, nodding down at the jacket.

Dustin froze, the jacket still hanging off his elbows. The cold wind biting at his shoulders was cutting through the short sleeves of his tee, the exposed skin between the jacket bunched up at the crook of his elbows and where the fabric of his shirt stopped already getting goosebumps, but he was frozen by more than just cold.

“Here,” Steve said, fond exasperation creeping into his voice as Steve took the neck of the jacket and pulled it up, easing it back over Dustin’s shoulders. Dustin hadn’t noticed he’d started shivering until Steve’s hand rubbed Dustin’s shoulder blades a couple of times before coming back to rest on his knees. Dustin’s head fell down as Steve took another drag on the cigarette, a small plume of smoke emanating out over the hill.

“I shouldn’t have taken it.”

Dustin’s voice was barely more than a whisper. Steve turned back to him, frowning in confusion.

“What?” Steve asked.

“Your jacket,” Dustin said. “I shouldn’t have taken it.”

Steve, if anything, looked more confused by the guilty expression on Dustin’s face.

“It’s just…” Dustin elaborated. “Your mom said everything was going to Goodwill, and I – it was _you, _Steve – you _loved _this jacket – and there was nothing else – and your mom said I could take it – and I didn’t want to, Steve – I’m so sorry – I didn’t want to just _take _it – but your mom said she didn’t mind – and Robin said I should-”

He took a deep, shuddering breath, aware that tears were forming in his eyes. “And I didn’t want it going and being sold second-hand to someone who wasn’t going to appreciate it – or to someone like _Troy Walsh _– who would just strut around pretending he was the new _you _– he didn’t even _know _you – _none _of those people knew you-”

Steve’s eyes were wide with complete bewilderment. He blinked a few times, gripping the cigarette between his fingers tightly. Dustin could see a thousand questions crossing his face –

“Who the _hell _is Troy Walsh?” Steve asked blankly.

Dustin _almost _laughed at the fact that of all the things Steve could have picked up on, it was _Troy Walsh _that had him verbalising his confusion.

“He’s… he’s a sophomore,” Dustin explained. “Used to bully us in middle school all the time. _Tries _to now, but… well, we stopped being scared of him after the whole _‘Demogorgons exist’_ thing, and he’s a bit scared of El after she broke his arm in seventh grade.”

“Hang on…” Steve paused. “Was he the one who threatened you and Mike with a knife?”

Dustin nodded before stopping to correct Steve. “Actually, he only threatened _me _with a knife. He told _Mike _to jump off the Quarry.”

Steve nodded as Dustin saw him piecing together the story in his head – a story that Dustin had only told Steve once after running into him outside the arcade.

“Yeah, I think I know of him,” Steve said. “He didn’t exactly make an impression at school, but yeah, from what you told me… Yeah – no, I would have _hated _him getting the jacket.”

Dustin looked up at him, the corners of his mouth tightening. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve shrugged, taking another drag. “You’re _way _more worthy.”

The beginnings of the smile that had been pulling at the corners of Dustin’s mouth fell, his head falling against his chest.

_He wasn’t. He wasn’t worthy of anything from Steve. Not after leaving him there – not after leaving him to go through a hell that Dustin hadn’t even known could exist._

Steve noticed the sudden change in posture, turning towards him in alarm.

“_Dude_, what’s wrong?”

The question from Steve – so alarmed and worried, like there was nothing wrong with _him _– was enough to send Dustin’s walls crashing down. A feeling he’d become all too familiar with engulfed him – _breathlessness – colours brighter than they should be, too bright – a weight on his chest – fear – soul-crushing fear – the world lurched – he couldn’t breathe – he couldn’t remember how –_

“Dustin,” the gentle baritone of Steve’s voice was somewhere above him – he didn’t remember closing his eyes – _he couldn’t see – he couldn’t breathe –_

“Dustin, if you can hear me, I need you to squeeze my hand.”

The words, coupled with the dim feeling of a thumb rubbing the back of his right hand brought the presence of the rest of Steve’s hand in his own into clarity.

“Dustin, can you squeeze my hand for me?” Steve’s voice asked gently, more measured and controlled than Dustin had ever heard him. Dustin clenched his right hand as tightly as he could, gripping the hand that rested in it as tightly as possible. It was a lifeline, something physical tying him to the voice above him.

“That’s good,” Steve’s voice rumbled. “We’re going to try breathing together, okay? Just in through your nose, and out through your mouth. In and out. Do you reckon you can do that for me?”

Dustin squeezed the hand in his own desperately. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, too fast, too loud –

“Okay,” Steve said. “_In_… and _out_… _In_… and _out_…”

The first few attempts Dustin made were not even close to in time with what Steve was doing. His breath was shaking, coming in short gasps. He forced himself to try, though, the feel of Steve’s chest rising and falling against his back grounding him.

“_In… _and _out…_”

Dustin forced his chest to cooperate, trying to mimic the rise and fall he could feel against him with his own chest. It was still a shaking, shuddering breath that was still more of a gasp than anything else, but at least it was in control.

“There we go,” Steve said encouragingly, his voice still that steady, soothing timbre. “And again. _In… _and _out…_”

The next attempt was a bit more controlled – he managed not to snatch at the air so much, but it was still shaking, unsteady. Steve kept repeating the soft mantra until at last, Dustin was managing to breathe a little more steadily.

“Okay, we’re going to try breathing in for two and out for two, okay?” Steve said gently, rubbing his shoulder, and for the first time Dustin was aware of the arm around him. “_In_… two… and _out… _two…”

Dustin forced himself to try and follow the new pattern, his chest cooperating only a fraction more than when he’d first tried to bring it under control. Having Steve mimicking the breaths he was counting was helping, providing some sensation he could feel given that sight had not an option and sound was significantly less clear than it should have been. It took a few more shuddering breaths before they stabilised.

“That’s great, Dustin, that’s really great,” Steve said encouragingly, the hand on his shoulder moving in a soothing, circular motion. “Let’s try breathing in for three and out for three, okay?”

Dustin squeezed Steve’s hand once more before loosening his grip a fraction as it became less necessary. The only thing he could hear was Steve’s counting, a constant mantra of sound grounding him to reality.

“_In_… two… three… and _out_… two… three…”

The breaths became easier, more controlled, as he found himself listening to the repeated pattern. Slowly, he started to become more aware of other sensations. The ringing in his ears that only Steve’s voice had been able to penetrate started to fade back into other sounds, the wind through the trees of the forest. He was aware that he was leaning sideways –

_Hold on –_

“Dustin,” Steve’s voice was saying. “Do you think you can open your eyes for me?”

Dustin nodded slightly. With more effort than it should have required, he prised his eyelids open. He blinked a few times, taking in his surroundings.

He was practically lying in Steve’s lap on his side. One of Steve’s hands was clasped around his own, the other was resting on his shoulder, rubbing circles into it, the cigarette balanced awkwardly between his fingers. Steve was looking down at him with a warm smile that didn’t mask the worry and alarm in his eyes.

“You back with me?” Steve asked.

Dustin managed a small nod. He didn’t think he had it in him to sit up, tears slowly rolling down his face. He furiously wiped them away with his free hand – _what right did he have –_

“Sorry,” Dustin muttered, as though the word was even _close _to enough.

“It’s fine,” Steve said. “It happens.”

And of course – _of course_ Steve thought he was apologising for losing control like that. The therapist he saw once every other week had given him the name for when that happened – _panic attack _– but he’d been fighting it off ever since Steve had appeared in that doorway, so different and yet still _Steve…_

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Dustin said thickly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so _sorry-_”

He was shaking as his voice devolved into sobs. Steve just kept rubbing his shoulder, looking down at him with such concern that Dustin couldn’t look at him anymore.

“Erica kept telling me – she kept telling me to go back – she _told _me that we needed to go back for you – but I wanted to wait – to get _help _– and then-”

Dustin choked as a sob forced its way out of his throat in place of any words. _He was back outside that elevator, pushing against Hopper as he demanded that Hopper do the impossible, even though he realised that it wasn’t going to happen, the last thread of denial holding up the dam against his guilt finally breaking, a feeling he’d never known engulfing him…_

“I should have gone back for you, Steve,” Dustin sobbed. “I should have gone back for you in Starcourt, I should never have left you, I should never have let you stay behind to hold that door, I should never have brought you down there in the first place, it’s _my _fault, it’s _all my fault…_”

Dustin tensed as the hand stopped rubbing circles into his shoulder. Dustin blinked and saw the hesitant understanding on Steve’s face. He suddenly became hyper-aware of the worry in Steve’s eyes coupled with something he couldn’t read – he pushed himself up and away from Steve, a movement so sudden he felt Steve flinch away from him as he did so.

He curled away from Steve, hunching his shoulders as he turned away from him. He felt Steve’s eyes on his back, but couldn’t hear any sound of him trying to approach – _he hated that he _wanted _Steve to try_…

“This _never _should have happened,” Dustin muttered, his voice still shaking and thick to the point of incoherence. “You _never _should have been down there. You never should have come with me. You never should have _helped _me. I shouldn’t have left you. I shouldn’t have let you hold that door. You never should have been caught. You never should have had to go through that. You _never _should have ended up having to choose between the Upside Down and _dying. _But it _did, _and it happened because of _me._”

Dustin felt every second of the silence stretch as he felt Steve’s eyes on his back. He wanted to hear Steve _say _something – scream out bloody murder like he deserved, or else coldly tell Dustin that he was done with him, _just to get it over with –_

“You’re right.”

The two words that fell from Steve’s mouth startled Dustin so much that he turned his head around to see Steve not looking at him, but rather down at the cigarette in his hand.

“You’re right, it _never should have happened_,” Steve said, sounding thoughtful. “I probably _shouldn’t_ have been down there. But neither should _you, _Dustin. The Russians should never have invaded Hawkins. They never should have opened the Gate. But they _did, _and because of you, we managed to figure out what they were up to, what we were up _against,_ and you sent Hopper in, guns a-blazing, and he went and fixed it-”

“Only after the Russians had _tortured _you and Robin,” Dustin choked out indignantly. “I should have stayed-”

“Dustin,” Steve said gently, the beginnings of a small smile playing around his lips. “That is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

Something of his shock and disbelief must have shown on his face, because a second later, Steve was laughing. It was fond and carefree, lines of worry and pain disappearing from his face for a moment as a ghost of Steve’s old self shone through.

“What the _hell _would have happened if you’d stayed, Dustin?” Steve laughed. “You would have been caught alongside me and Robin, you would have been hurt just like us, and – _best case scenario _– Erica would have been left trying to get back through a top-secret Russian base on her own to go and warn the others. She would have been _terrified._”

“Erica doesn’t _get _terrified,” Dustin pointed out.

“Yeah, because _you _were there,” Steve pointed out. “You were there to help her out, you didn’t leave her on her own. I can tell you now, the _hardest _times when I was stuck in the Upside Down and in Russia were the times when I was on my own. Having Billy there – yeah, even _Billy_,” Steve said at Dustin’s incredulous expression, “–made everything a lot easier. If you’d left Erica on her own, she would have been working her way back through a Russian base on her own with a load of Soviets after her. Even if she _had _made it, when she got back to the mall, do you think she’d have known what to _do?_ And that’s even saying that she _would _have gone. She might have stayed behind and gotten _herself _captured by the Russians, and do you honestly think they would have left her _alone?_ And _then _what? Hopper wouldn’t have known that _any _of us were down there. He would have gone and blown up the Gate and we would _still _have been stuck.”

Dustin looked at him, tears still rolling down his face but the sobs catching in his throat around the complete _shock _of it all. Steve gave Dustin a hesitant smile before his face turned down to his knees.

“That day…” Steve muttered, the laughter dying in favour of a more serious tone. “When I heard the elevator go, I… I wasn’t just _relieved, _Dustin. I was… I was fucking _proud, _to tell you the truth. You’d _snuck out of a secret Russian base _right under the Soviets’ noses. Not only that, but you got _Erica _out, too. That was… that was pretty fucking awesome.”

Dustin’s mouth slipped open. He was so taken aback by Steve’s words that the tears stopped. Hearing the events of one of the worst days of Dustin’s life told like he was a _hero, _like he’d _succeeded_ was something he’d never even considered.

“You should ask Robin,” Steve continued. “I – I’m _pretty _sure I started trying to rub it in Ozerov’s face when we heard the elevator go.”

Dustin’s eyes widened in alarm. “_Why?_”

Steve grinned down at his knees. “Well, Billy wasn’t wrong when he said my self-preservation skills were shit.”

Dustin looked over at him, a tentative attempt at twisting the corners of his lips up into a smile again.

“Dustin,” Steve’s voice became serious once more. “You did everything right that day. You saved Erica, you found _help, _you got Hopper to save me and Robin and stop the Russians. That’s _amazing, _Dustin. _Really, _it is. The things that went wrong had _nothing _to do with you. They weren’t your fault, and you _certainly _shouldn’t have done anything different.”

“I left you there-” Dustin began weakly, but Steve wasn’t having any argument.

“_You got Erica out. _You went and warned Hopper and he came down to save us. Between us and the people in that room, we managed to _spectacularly _ruin a months-long operation by the Soviets and stave off the end of the world for another few months. And now we _know _just how big the Soviets’ operation is-”

“Thanks to _you,_” Dustin pointed out.

Steve broke off, a strange look in his eyes, like he hardly dared to believe the words that had just left Dustin’s mouth.

“Steve, we only know that because of what _you _went through,” Dustin explained. “We only know that because you came back home at all costs. The only reason _any _of this was worth a damn was because _you _survived. Not _me,_ not _Erica, _but _you._”

Steve’s strange, disbelieving look widened Steve’s eyes as he looked at Dustin. He looked nervous, almost _scared_ of what Dustin was telling him, like he didn’t quite have the courage to trust them. The piercing look was broken only when Steve’s eyes flicked down to the floor, a sad smile on his face as he took a long drag on his cigarette.

“Yeah, well,” Steve muttered. “Everything-”

“Steve, if you say _‘everything worked out for the best’ _or something equally bullshit, I’m going to push you down this hill.”

Steve looked up at Dustin, a small quirk to his lips as he smirked challengingly.

“Oh yeah?” Steve’s eyebrow raised. “You think you can push me down the hill?”

The challenge was unmistakeable, but Dustin didn’t quite have the energy to rise to it. He blinked, letting a tear roll down his cheek.

“I _really _thought you’d died,” Dustin whispered. “I really thought I’d _killed_ you.”

Steve’s smile dropped, but there was such _care _shining in his eyes as he shifted closer to Dustin, slinging an arm around his shoulder and pulling him against his side. “This has _really _been eating you up, hasn’t it?”

Dustin nodded as he fell against Steve’s side, his head coming to rest on Steve’s shoulder. “I guess you could say that,” Dustin muttered.

“Well, first of all, _you _didn’t do anything to cause that,” Steve said. “And second… it takes a _hell _of a lot more than _that _to kill me.”

The hand around his shoulder moved up to muss up Dustin’s curls again, reminding Dustin of the fact that yes, just because Dustin was in the middle of his growth spurt, it did _not _mean that he was as tall as Steve. They fell back into silence, a far more comfortable one than before, where a million apologies were left unsaid hung between them. The last of the tears slipped down Dustin’s face as Steve finished off the cigarette, lazily flicking the stub out over the hill. It landed somewhere in the undergrowth as Dustin finally, tentatively, hesitantly allowed himself to enjoy Steve’s company.

“So,” Steve muttered, his tone much lighter as he broke the silence. “You still in touch with that girl from camp – uh – _Suzie?_”

-:-

Will was watching.

More specifically, Will was watching _Billy. _Just about every eye in the room seemed to be centred on the door to the storm cellar, waiting for the two people on the other side to come back inside. _Everyone_ had questions – the explanation Steve and Billy had given, while reassuring, left a _lot _of details to be desired. That said, Will knew better than anyone how overwhelmed Steve and Billy must have been feeling, and nobody seemed to begrudge giving them time to just _stop._

Dustin was talking to Steve, and Will was honestly relieved about it. He couldn’t imagine how Dustin and Max must have been feeling, though Jonathan seemed to have a better grasp on it. Will had caught Jonathan looking at him strangely, and it was no accident that Jonathan had positioned himself _quite _so close to him.

Robin had emerged about twenty minutes ago as Dustin had gone to talk to him. She had made it to the bottom of the stairs before sitting down on the floor. Will hadn’t missed the slight tremor in her hands as she’d run them over her face, or the determinedly forced way she was breathing. It reminded Will slightly of his mom, how _she’d _force herself to breathe when things became too much. Will couldn’t help but wonder whether it was simply the sheer impossibility of the evening’s events, or whether there was something more.

Will could only begin to contemplate the nightmare that Steve had gone through, but he found himself drawn more towards Billy. Billy, who was the only other person to have had the Mind Flayer inside him, controlling his every move. Billy, who had shared in the nightmare of Steve but from an entirely unique perspective. A tiny part of Will wanted to run away, to get up, to shove Billy out of the storm cellar and lock him out, to lock out the nightmare that they now shared, while another, much larger, louder, and eminently more reasonable part of Will wanted to sit down opposite Billy and talk. Compare notes. Instruct him on certain coping mechanisms. Ask him about how _he_ coped with certain aspects that remained entirely elusive to Will.

The problem was, however, that aside from the arm that was resting over Max, Will had never encountered anyone more closed-off than Billy Hargrove.

They weren’t friends. Will had actively avoided having anything to do with Billy Hargrove for the however many months that they’d lived in the same town. After stories from Mike and Lucas and Dustin of _what _Billy had done to Steve – what he had _almost _done to Lucas – had been shared around the Party and told with as much relish and excitement and dramatic flair as any of Mike’s narration in Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, Will had kept his head down and kept away from Billy. What he’d seen in the months that had followed only seemed to correlate with the stories that he’d been told.

_This _Billy Hargrove, however, seemed entirely different. Certainly, enough of the sharp edges had been smoothed down slightly. Whatever problems he had had with Steve seemed to have become ancient history – Will hadn’t failed to notice how quickly Billy had picked up the story when Steve had looked completely at a loss. The longer Will watched him – and he seemed to be the only person giving more than a passing glance to Billy other than Max and Lucas – the more he noticed that despite the fond looks Billy would give Max, out of every thirty seconds, Billy was spending twenty-five of them watching the storm cellar door. Billy was worried about Steve, but he seemed to realise that Steve needed some time away from them and was willing to respect that. At least, for the time being.

“Hey,” Jonathan breathed, his voice little more than a whisper. He wasn’t alone in wanting to have as close to a private conversation as they could in the cellar – El and Mike were having their own whispered conversation which seemed to be less a conversation and more of a monologue on Mike’s part while El just held his hand. Will wondered exactly just _how _likely it was that Mike would stand by his decision at Christmas to officially end all prospects of their relationship.

“Hey,” Will breathed back, remembering Jonathan’s presence as he watched El and Mike.

“Are you okay?” Jonathan asked.

Will nodded. He was surprised to find that he _was _okay, all things considered. He was worried, certainly – the prospect of the Russians working under the Mind Flayer was downright terrifying, even without the Gate at Hawkins Lab or the added complication of the Gate in Russia, or the fact that by all accounts, the Russian operation seemed to be of a scale unprecedented, but there was something that calmed him. For the first time in a _long _time, Will felt out of the Mind Flayer’s crosshairs. It had left Billy to take over a Russian commander in order to fully utilize the resources that the position offered. Will felt fairly confident that the Mind Flayer was not about to give that up.

“What…” Will breathed back. “What about you? You – uh – you took a pretty hard hit.”

Jonathan blinked, as though in the chaos of Billy and Steve’s return and subsequent car chase, he’d completely forgotten that he’d been punched in the face on the lawn outside the house by a well-trained Russian soldier. His hand lifted subconsciously to the bruise on his cheek, and Will could see the slight wince as his fingertip brushed it.

Jonathan saw the concern on Will’s face and tried to smooth it out with a smile. “It’ll be fine. I thought I was seeing things when it first happened, but that had more to do with Steve coming back than the actual hit.”

Will gave him a smile. “Yeah, it’s… it’s pretty crazy…”

Jonathan’s eyes flicked up to the doors. “Yeah…” he muttered. “I _still _can’t believe it, really.”

Will’s eyes flickered back to his mom, who seemed to be alternating between getting up and pacing as best she could in the tight, crowded space and wordlessly sitting beside Hopper, looking as though she was itching to either scream, burst into tears or throttle someone. By the look on Nancy’s face, it seemed to be a fairly common dilemma. Jonathan turned over to Nancy, who was staring into space with a heartbroken expression that was mingled with more than a little anger.

Will glanced back at Billy, noticing how his eyes, in the five seconds that they flicked away from the doors, seemed to gravitate more and more towards Nancy, the same defensive light coming into his eyes as he’d had when he’d rounded on Mike. He looked like he wanted to say something to her, but was resisting the urge.

Before Billy’s patience ran out, everyone’s attention was snagged by the sound that they had all been waiting for. The storm cellar door creaked open and Dustin and Steve re-emerged, both looking considerably calmer and more collected than they had looked when they had left. Will looked questioningly at Dustin, who even went so far as to manage a brave smile. Steve was given a chance to get to the bottom of the stairs and take a seat next to Robin before Will watched his mom cross the distance, crouching down beside him, a concerned hand finding its way onto his arm.

“I’m fine, Mrs Byers, _really,_” Steve was saying softly. “It’s just been a long day, that’s all.”

Will watched his mom give him a sad smile – one he’d seen on her face _so many times _in the days after he’d gotten back from the Upside Down, and Will couldn’t help but remember how his mom had been in those hours after he’d woken up in the hospital bed to her and Jonathan watching him. Will couldn’t help but notice the way that a slight flush crept up to Steve’s cheeks. It was strange – less than four hours ago, Steve had been a spectre over them all, a cautionary tale holding Robin back, a weight of guilt chained to Dustin’s leg, a promise that Hopper had made that had been driving Hopper to constantly make sure that the only risks taken were the ones taken by him. The story that they had told had been almost _clinical _– Will could understand why, but despite having a better grasp than most on what Steve and Billy must have been feeling, Will couldn’t quite bring himself to face his own feelings in order to help understand their perspective. He would help – or at least _try _to help – even through simply talking to them, listening to them, sharing his own experiences _at some point, _but Will couldn’t face doing it _just then._

Instead, he found himself thinking about the Upside Down itself.

His own experiences in that particular Hell had largely correlated with what Steve and Billy had described. He had found water that was ultimately drinkable, even if he _had _needed to be on antibiotics for about a week afterwards as a precaution. The tunnels, however, were new. It was fair to say that he hadn’t been _looking _for the tunnels and had never found them, far more concerned as he was with hiding from the Demogorgon. Like Steve, he had gone to his home, where he felt safe, even if it _was _merely a thin illusion. It had been more luck than anything else that he had discovered that he could hear his mom’s voice, and even _more _luck that he had discovered that he could manipulate the lights to communicate with her.

The idea of the tunnels, however, where lighters and guns and flamethrowers existed, recovered from corpses of soldiers and scientists and past misdeeds, intrigued Will. Something Nancy had said had stuck with him – something about how when Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max and Steve had gone to set the tunnels on fire, they’d somehow passed _into _the Upside Down. It wasn’t the strangest theory; Hopper had said that the tunnels had also had the white flakes drifting through the air like snow or ash, but given everything that Billy had said about the Mind Flayer not liking to expose itself to physical limitations, it didn’t make the _most _sense –

_Hold on –_

“Billy,” Will asked before he could stop himself, his eyes widening as something occurred to him. “Can I ask you something?”

Billy looked over at him with a small frown. “Uh – sure…”

“Last summer,” Will said, chasing the threads of a thought, “the Mind Flayer used you to Flay loads of people.”

Billy looked guarded, tensing at the words.

“_But _you also said that in the Upside Down, it _didn’t _want to Flay Steve because he was too sick, and that it didn’t _like _Flaying people.”

“Where are you going with this?” Billy said warningly.

“Billy, it didn’t use _me _to Flay anyone, it didn’t want to, it didn’t _need _to,” Will explained. “Just like you said. It only used me when it _needed _me-”

Something else occurred to Will – an abomination in a hospital, bent over Nancy – _she’d said something else outside Starcourt – something long-forgotten in the loss of Steve and Billy –_

“It was building something,” Will said. “It was using the Flayed to build something last summer. Like _you_ said-” Will turned to Nancy, “-those journalists that were after you broke down and merged into that monster that attacked you in the hospital. If it took _all_ the Flayed, it could have made the big thing that attacked us in Starcourt Mall.”

“I’m _still _not seeing the question here, Byers,” Billy growled.

“_Why?_” Will asked, turning back to him, a determined light in his eyes. “Why would it go to the trouble to do that _unless…_”

“It _needed _to?” Billy finished, still not quite getting it.

“Billy,” Will said, looking at Billy expectantly. “You’ve _seen _this thing. It didn’t need _you, _or Steve, or _anyone _in the Upside Down. It’s unstoppable…”

“_…There…_” Billy finished, slowly starting to catch on. “You think that it _needs_ something…”

“And that’s why it needs to _Flay _people,” Will finished. “It’s a parasite here, but-”

“But it has its own form _there._”

“And in order to do anything _here-_”

“Sorry,” Robin cut in, sounding more than a little frustrated. “Would the Williams in the room like to include the _rest _of us in this conversation, please?”

Will turned around, feeling slightly sheepish as he realised that he and Billy had left the rest of them completely behind in their excitement. Billy seemed to share no such qualms, simply shooting Robin an exasperated look that only faded by the equally unimpressed look Steve gave him.

“Sorry,” Will said, more to the room than anything. “I just… I think I’ve worked something out about the Mind Flayer.”

He felt every eye in the room on him as he tried to find the right analogy to explain. “It’s… It’s like Billy said; it didn’t Flay Steve because it didn’t _need _to. Doctor Owens, what was it you said about exposing itself to human frailties or something?”

Owens looked at him, his brow furrowed in thought as he nodded.

“Well,” Will continued determinedly. “_If _that’s the case, _why Flay anyone at all?_ The Mind Flayer in its full form is powerful;_ way _more powerful than any human – present company excluded,” Will nodded at El, “so _why _would it need to Flay _people, _unless…”

“Unless it’s _only _more powerful in the Other Way Up,” Billy finished for him.

“You mean the Upside Down-” Dustin began but was cut off by a slightly bored shake of the head by Steve.

Will ignored Dustin. “The Mind Flayer,” he explained, “it _has _a physical form, it’s limited by spatial and temporal constraints just like the rest of us, but in the Upside Down, it’s not exactly… _solid._”

“You called it a Shadow Monster,” Mike caught on.

Will nodded. “Yeah, _because _it was like a shadow. It was… about as substantial as one. But _what if _that can’t survive in our world properly – what if it _needs _a physical form, like a _host-_”

“Like you two,” Steve finished for him.

“Like us,” Will nodded.

“Okay,” Nancy said. “That _does _make sense – when the part of the Mind Flayer that was in you left, it _did _turn into a big cloud of smoke, but… it didn’t _die. _It went and possessed Billy when the Russians reopened the Gate.”

Will nodded. “You’re right, but it didn’t _stop _there, did it? It realised it was going to need more-”

“For me,” El said, turning from Will to Billy. “You said it was for me.”

“_And that’s why it Flayed everyone,_” Will explained. “It was trying to build something _stronger _than a human, something that _could _defeat El, because El was the only threat – the only _real _threat it had.”

“But…” Billy paused, frowning at Will. “It had already started by the time it got to me. It _had _a body – it was _already _that monster…”

Will frowned, pausing as he thought, but next to him, Jonathan’s face lit up as he turned to Nancy.

“The rats,” he said suddenly. “It was Flaying the rats.”

Will looked at Jonathan, grinning. “So the first thing it did was to find some kind of physical form, some way it could exist in this world as itself.”

“But _rats _aren’t exactly the most useful hosts when it comes to finding a way to take down El,” Nancy continued. “So it Flayed the first person it could find, trying to make another _Will_.”

“Exactly,” Will continued. “It found Billy and used him to find others to create an army, only _this _time, instead of using Demogorgons and Demodogs, it used _people _that it could melt down into the _thing _that attacked us in Starcourt.”

“So – _hold on,_” Hopper paused, pushing himself up. “You’re saying that it needs some physical… _body _or something in order to survive in our world?”

“Well, not necessarily to _survive, _but to function,” Will said. “It’s like… it’s _weaker _without a host. And it needs a connection to the Upside Down – or a connection to the brain or something in order to activate itself, which is _why _it didn’t do anything after you guys got it out of me before the Russians opened up the Gate last summer.”

“But if that’s the case, what does it _want?_” Joyce asked.

“The same things it’s always wanted,” Will explained. “To spread, to breed, to _kill_…”

“But why _here?_” Max asked. “If the Mind Flayer can’t function properly here, why does it keep coming back?”

“Well, we’re a pretty serious threat to it,” Dustin pointed out. “At every turn, we’ve managed to defeat it. The Demogorgon came here for the first time because it turned out it was a pretty good hunting ground, with humans proving to be very good prey – so far, basic survival instincts. Then Will turned out to be a fairly good host, allowing the Mind Flayer to breed. But _then _El came along and kicked its ass _again_, and now it’s-”

“Survival,” Billy finished, turning towards El. “It always saw killing you as _survival._”

Billy’s words set Will on edge, a sinister feeling creeping up his back. It wasn’t the same feeling Will had now come to associate with the Mind Flayer’s presence, but rather raw fear.

“But _why _does it want to come _here?_” Max asked. “If it can’t survive here, _why_ does it-”

“It _can _survive here,” Will pointed out. “It _can _survive here, it can _thrive _here, it just needs the right _conditions._”

Will looked over at Owens, watching as understanding smoothed over the Doctor’s face.

“The tunnels,” Owens breathed.

“Exactly,” Will said, before turning to Steve. “_You _said you found your old lighter there, still fully functional. You found guns, you found that flamethrower, and they were _all working, _like they’d come from _our _world. _That’s because they had. _Doctor Owens, _you _said you thought the tunnels were these _vines, _spreading from the Upside Down into our world. And _Jonathan – Nancy _– when we thought we were looking for Gates, _Nancy _was saying that she thought we could be looking for these temporary Gates – but they weren’t – they weren’t _Gates_, they were weak points between _our_ world and the _Upside Down_. The _reason _why Steve found his lighter that he used to set the tunnels on fire while El closed the Gate was because the _tunnels _weren’t an _infection _spreading, it was the _Upside Down itself!_”

A ringing silence followed, Will breathing hard like he’d just run a marathon. He paused, his eyes wide as he took in a roomful of confused faces.

“_What?_” Hopper asked, his voice a mix of dubiousness, incredulity and complete and utter confusion that seemed to quite accurately sum up the feelings of everyone present.

Will sighed. “It’s like – like when I talked to you in our house, Mom,” he turned to Joyce. “When _I _got stuck in the Upside Down. You were _there _– I _saw _you. It was through this – this _membrane _in our wall. You were _right there. _And the _vines _as well – if you broke through that membrane, you’d find yourself _in _the Upside Down-”

“So when I dug that hole in Melvald’s…” Hopper began.

“You _broke through _into the Upside Down,” Will finished for him. “And _then, _when Mike and the others went to set the tunnels on _fire…_”

“We actually _did _go through into the Upside Down,” Lucas finished for him.

“Okay, so how does this help us?” Hopper asked. “Can we use this to somehow _trap _this thing?”

A silence fell, everyone lost in thought. Will was still thinking about the Mind Flayer – if it really _wouldn’t _come through to their world –

“What if we _made _it come through?” Will broke the silence. “What if… what if we found a way to bring it into our world _without _a host?”

“You mean…” Steve looked at Will like he wanted him institutionalised. “You want to find the _big Shadow Monster Mind Flayer_… and _bring it into our world?_”

“Steve,” Will explained breathlessly. “It can’t _exist _here like that. If we could find a way to make it come through and close the Gate behind it so it can’t go back, cut it off completely from the Upside Down, we might _finally _be able to destroy this thing.”

“Yeah, there’s just one problem,” Steve pointed out. “We _can’t _just close the Gate like last time, they’ve got one in Russia now.”

“Unless…” Mike started. “Doctor Owens, are you still meeting with those people tomorrow?”

Owens blinked in surprise. “What?”

“Those people you said you were meeting with,” Mike ploughed on. “Is that still happening?”

Owens looked confused. “If I can _get _to the Hospital, yes…”

Billy frowned slightly. “I assume you’re not talking about Hawkins Memorial…”

“Oh – _no – _no,” Owens explained. “After the Lab officially shut down, we set up a military hospital not too far from there. I’m meeting with some higher-ups-”

“Do you think you could authorise a nuclear strike or something?” Mike interrupted.

Owens let out a surprised noise that was somewhere between a snort and a cough as he looked at Mike incredulously.

“_Excuse me?_” Owens spluttered.

“Could we send, like, a _nuke _over to Russia and blow up the base?”

The slightly pained expression on Nancy’s face at her brother’s naivety mirrored the exasperation on Hopper’s as Owens looked at Mike with a certain fond patronisation.

“No,” Owens said simply.

“Why _not?_”

“Well, for one thing, we don’t know where it is-”

“Kamchatka,” Billy said, not missing a beat.

There was a moment of silence as everyone turned to look at him. Billy looked up, slightly confused, but it was nothing compared to the blank incredulity on Steve’s face. Billy’s expression softened as he looked over at Steve.

“They kept calling it the Kamchatka operation,” Billy said. “It’s an area in Russia.”

Owens looked at him searchingly for a moment, before shaking his head slightly. “For _another _thing, Mr Wheeler, the President would never sanction it.”

“_Why not?_” Mike asked incredulously. “The Russians are invading America _right now – _they’re putting the _world _at risk-”

“And the President has spent the last year negotiating an intermediate-range disarmament treaty,” Owens cut through him. “_Any _attack with a nuclear weapon – even a _test _– would put that treaty at risk. If the peace talks fall through, it would bring us to the brink of nuclear war. The fallout would be catastrophic.”

“More or less catastrophic than an interdimensional monster using the Russian military to break open portals to Hell anywhere it wants?” Steve asked, a sarcastic smile on his face.

The smile, however, slipped at the look Owens gave him. Steve tilted his head as the gravity of a phrase he’d grown up with but had no tangible meaning beyond an abstract _‘generally best avoided’ _started to sink in. Sam looked at the floor sadly.

“You were probably all too young at the height of the nuclear threat to have properly understood the danger the world was facing,” Owens said sadly. “It prompted both sides to do some truly _awful _things. MK Ultra was… controversial, to say the least, but the Government felt that it was necessary. To this _day, _it has its sympathisers – though they don’t know the full cost, it’s fair to say…” Owens nodded at El. “Simply sending off a nuclear warhead to Kamchatka, even if we knew exactly _where _this base was, would have ramifications that we’d be feeling for years – _decades, _even – and that’s assuming that there _is _a United States of America to _feel _the ramifications in decades to come. The President’s top priority is this disarmament treaty. Nothing less than the complete collapse of talks between both sides will be enough for the President to sanction a nuclear blast on the Soviet Union.”

A chilling silence followed Owens’ explanation. Will glanced over at his mom and Hopper, both of whom looked like this was not unexpected, but even _they _were sobered by the stark reality of the conflict.

“Doc,” Hopper said. “I get that we can’t just _nuke _the place. But we _also _can’t just leave the Gate open. Is there anything _else _we can do?”

“Any action we _do _take will require the exact location of the base,” Owens said. “Kamchatka is more helpful than just _Russia, _and I know our side have intel on that particular area in Russia, but we need to know _exactly _where it is. We could _maybe _organise a strike team-”

“Sorry, what the fuck’s a _strike team _going to do against it?” Billy’s temper suddenly flared up. “We’re talking about a _military base. _It’s got the resources to send a fucking _army _halfway across the world in another dimension. And you want to take it out with a goddamn motherfucking _strike team?_”

“Billy,” Steve muttered, but Billy ignored him.

“You think a – a fucking _stealth operation _is going to be enough?” Billy continued. “We _tried _that. We _tried _to take out the Gate, and it almost got us _killed-_”

“_Billy!_” Steve’s voice rose, the desperation evident as it sliced through Billy’s ire. Billy turned to him, his eyes meeting Steve’s, shining as they were with desperate pain, and Billy finally closed his mouth, leaning back slightly.

“Mr Hargrove,” Owens said, seemingly satisfied that Billy wasn’t about to start shouting at him again. “I know that you and Mr Harrington know more about this place than I do. But have a _little _faith in the US military. Contrary to the Soviets’ opinion, we _do _know how to run a successful military operation.”

He tried for a brave smile at the joke, but it fell flat at the look on Billy’s face, a mixture of fury, frustration and guilt as he glanced over at Steve. Steve closed his eyes before bravely trying for a change of subject.

“Well, the _other _problem with just _closing the Gate _is the fact that it’s opened from the other side,” Steve pointed out. “Which means that even if we _did _close it and destroy the machine, whoever did so would be stuck in the Upside Down.”

“What about what you guys did before?” Nancy asked. “You guys made it through after you destroyed the machine-”

“We destroyed _one part _of the machine,” Billy pointed out. “Evidently, they fixed it.”

“So we blow it up like before,” Joyce said vehemently. “They _must _have a failsafe-”

“They _do,_” Steve muttered, his voice promising bad news, “but it’s too far away from the Gate for anyone to get back through before the machine explodes. Even if they _do _survive the explosion, they’ll still be stuck there.”

“No,” El said, breaking her silence.

Steve turned to her, frowning. “What?”

“I could open a Gate,” El pointed out.

Hopper sat up a fraction straighter, a face like thunder. “No-”

“I can _do it-_”

“I don’t care, _no-_”

“I’m _not _leaving someone in the Upside Down,” El said vehemently. “I can do it. I can open a Gate, I can _close _a Gate-”

“It’s too dangerous, El,” Mike added his voice to the concerns.

“Mike,” El said softly, taking his hand and looking at him, her eyes shining with hope. “I can do it. Trust me. _Please._”

Mike looked around to Hopper, who didn’t look even remotely convinced by El’s argument. He glanced over at Nancy, who instead gave him a small smile. He turned back to El, who even braved a small smile at him.

“I _do _trust you, El,” he said gently. “I just… I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I _won’t _get hurt,” her smile widened. “Promise. Friends don’t lie.”

Billy cut through the objections that Hopper looked like he was about to voice, unwilling to let them get _too _far off-track. “So we can close the Hawkins Gate,” he said. “_Then _what? Even assuming the Doc _can _mobilise a _strike team that can take out the Russian base, _how the hell are we going to get this thing back through the Gate?”

“I open a Gate,” El said simply.

“Yeah, but how do we get this thing to go through it-”

“I open a Gate,” El repeated, looking at Billy strangely.

“The first Gate,” Max suddenly interrupted. “You said you brought the Demogorgon through when you made contact. Making contact opened the Gate and brought the Demogorgon through.”

“Would that _work _on the Mind Flayer?” Lucas asked dubiously.

“It didn’t,” El said softly. “In summer. But I wasn’t _trying _then.”

“Even if it _does _come through, what are we going to _do _with it?” Steve asked. “I don’t know about the rest of you shitheads, but having an extremely angry Mind Flayer in our world doesn’t seem like a _win_ to me.”

“Then we find a way to _kill _it,” Nancy said matter-of-factly.

“Nice sentiment, Wheeler,” Billy said dryly. “_How?_”

“Me,” El said softly. “I can kill it.”

“_El-_” Mike protested, evidently unable to help himself.

“I can kill it,” El repeated. “Like the Demogorgon.”

A look of absolute horror crossed Mike’s face at the mention of the Demogorgon.

“El, _no!_” he protested. “You _can’t _do that – last time, we thought you were _dead-_”

El turned to him with a small smile. “I’m not dead,” she said softly. “I can do it. I’m stronger now.”

“But _so is the Mind Flayer!_” Mike protested vehemently. “El – I can’t lose you again, _please _don’t ask me to lose you…”

He trailed off into silence as Lucas and Max suddenly became very interested in the floor. Dustin looked up at the lightbulb like it held the answers to the mysteries of the universe. Nancy had a barely concealed smile on her face, while Jonathan employed his best, albeit still disastrous, poker face. Billy and Steve looked completely confused, Steve turning towards Robin blankly as Robin mouthed something about explaining later as Mike and El stared at each other like they were the only two people in the universe.

“Mike,” El breathed, leaning closer to him. “I can do it. I’m the _only one _who can. I _have _to do it. The Mind Flayer is weaker here. I can do it. _Please _trust me.”

There was a moment of silence before Will cleared his throat gently to remind them both that they were _not, _in fact, alone. It looked like the reminder was more necessary than he’d thought, given how they both seemed to startle at the noise.

“Right,” Steve said, clearly slightly thrown by the exchange. “So we need to go through the Gate, blow up the machine, find the Mind Flayer, bring it through the _new_ Gate that El will open and kill it somehow.”

“Well, when you put it like that, you make it sound so easy,” Robin muttered sarcastically.

“If we can _get _to the Gate, Steve and I can go through and take out the machine,” Billy said. “The problem will be getting to the machine itself – preferably undetected. The downside is that they gutted the building on the other side, and the basement was crawling with Demogorgons on the other side, and the main floor where the machine is isn’t exactly the easiest place to sneak into-”

“They didn’t gut the _whole _building,” Steve pointed out slowly. “You remember, they left most of the top floor. That’s where they kept us while we were building the machine.”

“So if we can get to the top floor-”

“We can get through the Gate without being noticed,” Steve finished, grinning. “And then we take out the Gate, and – El, what do you need to do to-”

“_ENOUGH!_”

The shout startled everyone, Billy and Steve flying to their feet on instinct as they turned to face an irate Hopper.

“This ends _now!_” Hopper snarled. “All of you are _kids! _I won’t have _any _of you breaking into Hawkins Lab, I won’t have El opening Gates to fight monsters, and _none of you _are going to risk your lives going through the _Gate!_ You’re going to _stay here _where it’s _safe, _and you’re going to let _us _handle it…”

Hopper trailed off at the sound of a bitter laugh that echoed out through the room as Billy leant back against the wall. He turned towards Steve, amusement shining in his eyes.

“Is this guy for _real?_” he asked Steve.

Steve joined in the laughter, a strange, humourless sound. Hopper looked between them, his annoyance mounting.

“_Listen, _kid-”

“No, _you _listen,” Billy snarled back. “Steve and I – we _know _what’s on the other side of that Gate. You want to fucking _bench _us? You think we can’t _handle _it? We _know _this place. We _know _these guys. We helped _build _this machine, we sure as _hell _know how to destroy it better than _you _do.”

“I’m _not _about to let you two risk your necks again,” Hopper said, looking more at Steve than at Billy.

“Oh _yeah?_” Billy raised an eyebrow at him. “What are you going to do – _arrest us?_”

“If I have to,” Hopper growled.

Billy shot him a pained, withering look. “Okay. Then… what are you going to do about the Portnov coil?”

“The _what?_”

The terminology threw him as Billy gave a patronising smile to Steve, who looked at Hopper with fond exasperation.

“The Portnov coil,” Billy said. “Or the hydroelectric crankshaft? How are you going to compensate for the gear-coupling mechanism that’s going to interfere with the mechatronics? How are you going to deal with the coaxial plenum-”

The penultimate word stirred something in Hopper’s memories as he suddenly frowned, looking towards Joyce, remembering how she’d set up the VHS-C tape player.

“I’m… _pretty _sure that last one was made up,” Joyce said slowly.

There was a pause before Steve snorted with laughter. “They were _all _made up, actually,” he grinned. “_But _the fact that it took you until the last one is reason enough as to why _we _should be the ones to go.”

Hopper looked between the two of them, his anger giving way to worry.

“Hopper, face it,” Steve said, his tone becoming more serious with every word. “Nobody knows the Upside Down better than _we_ do.”

Hopper had a slightly desperate look in his eye as he turned to Steve.

“Kid,” he muttered, forcing himself up off the floor to close the gap between them. “You don’t know what losing you did to these kids. What it did to your _parents_. I can’t let you do this-”

“Hopper,” Steve said gently, his own desperation shining bright in his eyes. “_I’m_ the one that brought this thing here; I _need _to be one of the ones to end it.”

Hopper’s eyes fell shut at Steve’s words. “Fine,” he whispered so quietly that only Steve could hear him. “But there’s no way in _hell _you two are going alone.”

-:-

Powell couldn’t help running a hand over his face as he looked down at his desk, tearing his eyes away from the silhouettes that were moving around Chief Hopper’s office. None of the silhouettes were even _remotely _close to the distinctive figure of Powell’s boss. Powell knew that they were uniformed officers who had gone in to search for anything that might have been of use following their return from Hopper’s cabin.

They had found Hopper’s Cruiser and Jonathan Byers’ car outside the cabin, along with another car that they were yet to get any information on. The cabin itself, much like the Byers’ residence, showed signs of being cleared out in a hurry, but was otherwise completely deserted. Powell watched as Mayor Harrington supervised a search of the Chief’s office in between making phone calls left, right and centre.

The whole situation was quite a spectacular mess.

Powell watched as Harrington came back into the main bullpen of the station, coming to a stop in front of Powell’s desk. Powell looked up at him, doing his best to hide his confusion as Harrington started to speak with a certain formality, not shy about being overheard, but still absolutely speaking to Powell above all else.

“I’ve spoken to the Commissioner,” he said. “After the events of tonight, the decision has been made to terminate James Hopper’s employment for the Hawkins Police Department. Until such time that a suitable replacement is found, we’ve decided to appoint you Acting Chief of Police. Congratulations on the promotion, no matter how temporary it may be.”

Powell gave Harrington an unreadable look as Harrington handed him a form that demanded his signature to make it official. While Powell looked down at it, Harrington turned to the rest of the room, commanding the attention of everyone present with little more than a sweeping stare. A hush fell over the bullpen as all eyes fell on the Mayor.

“I’ve spoken to the Commissioner and the District Attorney,” he announced to the room. “As of this moment, James Hopper and Joyce Byers are wanted for questioning regarding the murders of two federal agents at the Byers’ residence as well as the disappearances of William and Jonathan Byers, Nancy and Michael Wheeler, Robin Buckley, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson and Maxine Mayfield. They are to be brought in for questioning by force if necessary, along with any accomplices that they may have. I know that many of you may feel some conflict of loyalty here but make no mistake: your priority is the safety of those children. Failure is _not _an option. We are dealing with _extremely _dangerous criminals. The people who have done this have already killed two law enforcement officers. You should all be on high alert. Approach James Hopper with caution. He may well be prepared to kill you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been setting the revelation about the Mind Flayer since part 2, and I spent so long agonizing over how to reveal it that I now have NO idea if it's sensible or completely moronic... I THINK it makes sense in the context of the show, but yeah, I've spent so long working out how it works that eventually I just had to write it all down and hope for the best that it makes any sense whatsoever...
> 
> Fun fact for anyone who doesn't know about the Cold War - the treaty that Doctor Owens mentioned was actually a really important treaty in bringing the Cold War to a close that got signed in 1987 and marked a massive increase in cooperation between Reagan and Gorbachev. I have no idea if this is common knowledge, I don't know very much about the Cold War so I spent a good deal of time researching it and discovered this treaty was kind of critical and also in the process of being negotiated throughout the duration of the story, so yeah, I included it. Sue me.
> 
> In other news, once again a big shout out to IBeMandaPanda for doing another beautiful piece of art of a scene from the last chapter, it's literally EXACTLY how I imagined the scene. It's absolutely breathtaking, so go check it out here:   
https://ibemandapanda.tumblr.com/post/615581018551975936/long-live-the-kings-by-me4eva-chapter-42  
Seriously, if anyone has any fan art of this story (or indeed Harringrove in general) that they want to share, just drop me a link in the comments and I'll check it out!


	44. Part 4 Chapter 9: The Defectors’ Introduction To The Soviet Union

Erica Sinclair was the perfect embodiment of everything that Callahan hated about children.

He was not a father himself – a complete lack of any appreciation for the badge in Hawkins, largely thanks to Hopper’s reputation, meant that he was extremely unpopular at the sorts of events where he might meet anyone new. The few relationships he _had _found himself in had ultimately fizzled out after a few months, once the novelty of the relationship had worn off and the reality set in. It wasn’t the _pressure _of the job, exactly – _God _knew that policing Hawkins was dull, but rather the schedule. Being summoned out of bed at eleven o’clock at night over Tommy Hagan’s graffiti or the Albrights’ dog winding up the elderly Mrs Shelton to the point where she’d called the police for the tenth time that week did _wonders _for his love life.

Of course, to say that _nothing _ever happened in Hawkins was a lie – and on the rare occasion something _did _happen, it was something _big. _A disappearing twelve-year-old followed by a suicide and the death of Barbara Holland, the death of Bob Newby in the same Lab that was just shut down in the midst of a scandal covering up the death of Miss Holland, the legend that the Starcourt Tragedy had become and the fallout that had rocked Hawkins to its core, leading to a new Mayor, a string of assaults and now, evidently, six murders and a missing group of people, including their own Police Chief, who, according to Powell, was now no longer in the employ of the Hawkins Police Department and was suspect number one for the murders.

Any doubt that Callahan may have had that the disappearances were linked to Starcourt was obliterated in talking to Erica Sinclair. It was painfully apparent that she knew something, but Mr and Mrs Sinclair were hardly helping. Callahan had needed to send them into another room while he spoke to her, because anything Erica was saying stopped being said in the second that they started trying to tell her to answer Callahan. Callahan felt sympathy for the Sinclairs – they were clearly beside themselves with worry, but Callahan had a job to do.

“Erica,” Callahan said gently, trying to soften his tone as he leant forward, hoping that the use of her first name would help set her at ease. “All I want to do is to find your brother. He could be in danger. I know it’s hard, I know that Starcourt must have been a very stressful time for you, but anything you remember could help us find him.”

“Listen, Mr Policeman,” Erica said, not quite meeting his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t remember. It’s that I’m not _allowed _to tell you.”

Callahan frowned. “Who says you’re not allowed?”

“The Chief,” she said. “And the Doctor. It’s… well, it’s above your paygrade.”

Callahan closed his eyes. The revelation about the Chief being the one to keep this from him stung, but it hardly shook Callahan’s faith in him more than the rest of the night already had. It was more an aftershock rather than the actual earthquake.

“Erica,” Callahan started again, his voice low. “It’s possible that the Chief lied to you. If he told you to keep secrets from the rest of the police, from your own _family, _that’s extremely serious-”

“Well, they made me sign a form, and I’m not breaking it.”

Callahan frowned slightly. “Form? What form?”

Erica gave him an extremely withering look that no eleven-year-old should have perfected to _quite _that standard. “A _non-disclosure agreement?_” she said patronisingly. “It’s from the government. It means I can’t tell _you _anything.”

Callahan hadn’t expected to hit _that _brick wall. The surprise evidently showed on his face as Erica looked away, but Callahan wasn’t about to give up _just _yet.

“Erica,” he said, his voice just a fraction more vocal than a whisper. “Do you like your brother?”

Erica frowned at him, confused. “What does _that _have anything to do with it?”

Callahan tried for a smile. “Do you get on with him?”

“_No,_” she sounded scandalised by the question, as if anyone could _dare _question her coolness.

Callahan gave a soft laugh. “I get that,” he muttered. “Sibling rivalry, huh?”

“Is it a rivalry if you already won the second you were born?”

Callahan couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped his lips. “There _is _that,” he said. “But I bet deep down, you care about him, and you don’t want to lose him.”

Erica looked down at the floor, a small pout on her lips. “I can’t tell you anything unless the Doctor says it’s okay.”

“What doctor is that?” Callahan pressed softly.

“The Energy Doctor,” Erica said. “He worked for that Lab. I think his name was Owens or something. If you find him, and _he _says it’s okay, I’ll tell you.”

-:-

“I don’t like this,” Hopper muttered.

Sam sighed. He understood Hopper’s predicament, he _really _did. Despite never having known Steve Harrington beyond handing him a non-disclosure agreement in ’84 and watching him read it with all the thoroughness of a lawyer’s son before signing it, (because for all that Paul Harrington had failed to instil in Steve, he seemed to have made up for with some semblance of legal nous,) and despite never having known Billy Hargrove _at all, _the last few hours had shown Sam exactly _how _much their disappearances had impacted this group of people. Talking to them about the immensely complicated strategy that they were working out on how_ exactly _they were going to break into the Laboratory with one entrance that had been overrun by Soviets and interdimensional monsters before sneaking through a portal into another dimension to blow up said portal before using Hopper’s adopted daughter to open up _another _interdimensional portal to bring through the large mind-controlling monster that was controlling all the other interdimensional monsters, in addition to the commander of the Soviet military force that had overrun the Lab, which was hell-bent on destroying her, for the sole purpose of doing battle with said large, mind-controlling interdimensional monster could _not _have sat well with him. However, for all of Hopper’s reservations, Steve was right. They were too valuable not to use.

“So,” Steve said. “We go through, we blow up the machine, then El uses her weird void thing to follow us while we find the Mind Flayer, she then does… _whatever _it is she does to open up the Gate and drags the Mind Flayer into our world and fights the thing before closing the Gate again. Does that sound about right so far?”

“And if Supergirl over here _loses _her fight with that thing?” Billy asked sceptically. “What then? We don’t know for certain if this can’t-survive-in-our-dimension theory is right.”

Steve tilted his head slightly, thinking. “Billy, I think it _is _right,” he muttered. “Remember when it found the Gates in the Upside Down? The ones El was opening and closing?”

Billy frowned. “Yeah…”

“You remember how we _saw _the Mind Flayer show up at them a lot of the time?”

“Steve, it didn’t want you to make it-”

“But _why _did it never go through?” Steve pointed out. “That thing was _fast, _and the first time I ever saw you in the Upside Down, it was at one of those Gates. _You _didn’t make it, and if I remember rightly, you were pretty fucking pissed off about it. But the _Mind Flayer _– it _made _it. It made it to the Gate every single time it tried. So _why _didn’t it try that first time, when you _didn’t _know that I was in the Upside Down? _Why _didn’t it try to go through the Gate at any of the times it _did _make it – unless it _couldn’t?_”

Billy didn’t seem to have an answer for that.

“Look, whether or not Jane – or El – wins her fight against this thing or not is completely irrelevant unless can destroy the Gate in Russia,” Sam found himself pointing out. “If we don’t close that Gate, we can close as many Gates as we like in America and it’ll all be for _nothing,_ because they can just reopen them from the other side just like they did with this one.”

“I thought your _strike team _was on it,” Billy said sarcastically.

“Mr Hargrove, whatever we do, we’re going to need to know the location of the base,” Owens pointed out. “Kamchatka is useful – it’s _very _useful, but it’s also about a hundred thousand square miles. If you have any more information about the base itself – the _size _of it, the landscape around it-”

“It was big,” Steve said. “I only saw the area outside properly once, and that was in the Upside Down, but I think it was in some mountains…”

He looked over at Billy for confirmation, who just nodded. Sam filed that information away, feeling slightly disappointed by the vague detail –

“They had an airstrip,” Billy said. “Beyond the Gate, there was an airstrip. I don’t know if it was built in our world or the Other Way Up or whatever, but it was in this – this – I don’t know, like a _basin _– does that make sense? Like a flat bit of rock in the mountains. It might have been natural, it might have been carved, but it _really _wasn’t very far – I mean, they had to get the planes there _somehow._”

“_Planes?_” Sam felt his voice jump slightly at the revelation. “What planes?”

Steve and Billy frowned at each other.

“The… the planes the Soviets used to _get _here…” Billy said slowly. “They didn’t just… _magically teleport_ here with a machine…”

Sam felt his heart leap into his chest as something occurred to him. “These planes,” he said, breathing fast. “Would they have navigational equipment on them?”

Billy looked blankly at Steve. “I – _probably_…”

Sam broke into a smile. “If they _do, _and we can get hold of the hard drive, it may have a log of all the coordinates,” he explained. “That’d tell us where the Russian base is.”

Steve’s face lit up. “Okay,” he said. “Where would the hard drive be?”

“Well, that’s the fun part,” Owens’ smile faltered slightly. “It’d probably be… _on _the plane.”

Sam could see the pieces slot into place for Steve, Billy and Hopper. Hopper ran a hand over his face, huffing slightly with barely repressed exasperation.

“You want us to go and _find _one of these planes and bring you the hard drive so your people can hack into it?” Hopper sounded _far _past his limit. “Anything _else _anyone wants from this place? I’m pretty sure I can find a souvenir stand that sells t-shirts.”

Steve smirked as he raised an eyebrow at Billy.

“So,” Steve said cheerfully. “_Slight _adaptation to the plan. We go into the Upside Down, find a plane, steal the hard drive, get it back through the Gate, _then _go blow up the machine, find the Mind Flayer, get El to open up a Gate to drag the Mind Flayer through and kill it before closing the Gate.”

“Right,” Billy rolled his eyes. “So if there are three of us, and two of us need to blow up the Gate, that leaves one person to go back through and get the hard drive to the Doc in this military hospital facility of his.”

“Hopper, that should probably be you, since you know where this place _is,_” Steve began –

“_No,_” Hopper growled. “No way am I leaving the two of you behind-”

Steve rolled his eyes. “It makes _sense_, Hopper, _we _know the Upside Down better-”

“Kid, we’ve already lost you once-”

“You have a _family-_”

“So do you-”

“_Hopper,_” Steve said with a sense of finality. “My mom and dad _already _think I’m dead. If things go wrong… it’s not going to make a difference if I don’t come home.”

Hopper raised his eyebrows. “_Yeah?_” he muttered. “Look around.”

Sam watched as Steve’s eyes fell to the floor, not needing to look at everyone else in the room in order to understand what Hopper was getting at. Sam didn’t miss how the only person his eyes _did _flit to was Billy, and he suddenly understood Steve’s dilemma _much _better.

“All of this is going to be irrelevant if Jane can reopen the Gate,” Sam diverted the course of the argument. “We can argue about that later. I can also send in some soldiers if need be-”

“No,” Billy muttered. “This needs to be quiet. The less people that go into the Other Way Up, the better.”

Sam noted with some amusement how Mike and Dustin opened their mouths simultaneously to correct Billy’s name for the land beyond the Gate before Steve just held out a hand to stop them with a small shake of his head.

“I’d still feel much more comfortable if there were a few well-armed soldiers looking out for Jane,” Sam glanced from Steve to Billy to Hopper. “If you three are going to go through the Gate, that wouldn’t leave El with _much _protection-”

“She’d have _us,_” Mike blurted out.

Sam turned to look at him, not alone in his incredulity. However, Mike Wheeler was clearly _used _to being looked at like that, and possessed enough self-confidence that wasn’t _entirely _unearned from dealing with monsters since he was twelve to meet the looks of patronising surprise that were sent his way with a determined glare.

“No,” Hopper said flatly.

“Hopper-”

“_No,_” Hopper growled. “The rest of you kids are going to stay here where it’s _safe. _I’m not having _anyone _in harm’s way who doesn’t absolutely need to be.”

“But we can _help!_” Mike pointed out. “If you need someone to break into a hard drive, who better than the _Hawkins AV Club? _I’ve been learning BASIC for the last year and a half, Dustin built a radio tower at camp that picked up a secret Russian message, Will knows everything there is to know about the Mind Flayer and the Upside Down-”

“_I don’t care,_” Hopper’s voice shut down any further argument. “You’re staying here, and you’re staying out of trouble.”

“But-”

“Mike,” Steve interjected. “He’s right.”

Mike turned to look at Steve, and perhaps Steve had conveyed some deep truth in his eyes that neither Hopper or Sam would ever be quite so successful at conveying – that government laboratories overrun by Soviets were no place for teenagers – or perhaps his own mention of learning BASIC had given him simply reminded Mike of _why _he’d started learning it, of the last time he’d been in that building, running for his life before watching Bob Newby get torn to pieces in front of his eyes, powerless to stop it, or perhaps the mere fact that _another _voice had joined Hopper’s, a voice that had long held a certain fearlessness in the face of hairbrained schemes before suffering consequences beyond Mike’s imagination, but the three words from Steve were enough to stifle the last of his protests. He fell silent, something hiding in his eyes. Sam watched as Jane – _El, _Sam corrected himself mentally – reached out and took his hand, giving it a soft squeeze.

“There’s…” Billy broke the silence. “There’s something else that needs to be dealt with. Ozerov. As long as that _thing _still has a human host, it’s still going to be a threat.”

Steve jerked his head back towards Billy, a look in his eyes that sent a cold chill down Sam’s back. Sam’s stomach clenched involuntarily, feeling his body tense in anticipation of Steve’s words.

“So we kill him,” Steve said simply. His voice was neutral, as though he had simply announced that they should go for ice cream.

Nancy stifled a gasp, the small intake of breath through her nose leaving an uncomfortable silence at Steve’s words.

“Steve,” Will muttered, looking at him uncomfortably. “There’s a _person _in there.”

Steve shook his head, his voice remaining neutral. “No, there isn’t.”

Jonathan frowned slightly. “You don’t know that-”

“There isn’t_,_” Steve repeated, his tone barely changing but a certain finality falling into his voice. “Flayed or not, Ozerov is a monster.”

Sam unwittingly found his eyes drawn to Robin, who was the only person _not _looking at Steve. She was hunched over, hugging her knees to her chest, her eyes shut tight against the world.

“Steve, you’re not a killer,” Nancy whispered.

Robin’s head fell forward against her knees, otherwise completely unnoticed by everyone as Steve gave a bitter laugh.

“Nance, you watched me shoot two people outside Jonathan’s house,” he laughed, giving her a fond but exasperated look as he shook his head. He pressed his lips together, and Sam could see a sadness in his eyes that told more truth than he was prepared to put into words.

Nancy was still looking at him desperately, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Steve, that was _different-_”

“_Was_ it?” Steve asked incredulously, the disbelieving laugh at her naivety giving way to a grimace, pain shining in his eyes. Sam watched as Robin pulled her head out of her knees, her face screwed up some way behind Nancy’s back, unnoticed by anyone other than Sam.

“Nance, he _can’t _be left alive,” Steve explained, his voice sounding breathy as he shook his head, never breaking eye contact with her. “With what he _knows, _he’s a danger to everyone in this room. He’ll come after _everyone. _And not just you – your _families _as well. You think – you think _Holly _will be safe just because she’s a goddamn _five-year-old?_ That’s not how this _works, _Nance. _Please _tell me you’re not that naïve.”

Sam saw Nancy’s jaw clench, her face falling to the floor as tears slipped down her face. Sam could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed, watching as Robin’s nails dug into the denim of her jeans covering her legs. Sam turned away from her, looking at Steve as a flash of guilt crossed his face. He pressed his lips together again momentarily as he turned away.

“Wheeler,” Billy broke his silence, a strange and unreadable look on his face. “Come on. Let’s get some air.”

Nancy met his eyes determinedly. “I’m fine,” she muttered, her voice little more than a whisper as she pushed away Jonathan’s hand that was wrapping itself around her fingers.

“I wasn’t asking,” Billy stood up, offering a hand for her to take.

“_Billy,_” Steve said, a ghost of a fight long since lost creeping into his voice.

“It’s _fine,_” Nancy said, forcing a calm tone as she ignored Billy’s hand while she stood up. “It’s fine.”

Sam watched Steve’s eyes follow them towards the door before turning back to the centre of the room. He determinedly avoided making eye contact with anyone.

Hopper let out a sigh as he looked around the room. “It’s been a long night,” he said firmly. “We should all try and get some sleep.”

Sam felt a wave of gratitude at Hopper’s subject change. “I probably have enough information to be getting on with. I’ll probably catch a few hours’ sleep and then start going to the hospital.”

“Would we be safer _there?_” Lucas asked.

Sam felt his face twist in hesitation. “As much as I wish you were, you probably won’t be. It’s a _relatively _secure facility, but it’s a military hospital, not a black site like Hawkins Laboratory. If the Soviets find out you’re there and send those _things _after you, there’s not a lot that we’ll be able to do. For now, this is probably safer. It’s off the grid, at any rate. In a day or so, maybe, but in the meantime, I’d suggest you stay here.”

Lucas looked slightly taken aback by Sam’s analysis, but realisation then crossed his face as he got up suddenly and went over to where he’d put his backpack.

“You might want _this, _then,” he said, extracting the radio and pressing it into his hands. “So we can contact each other if we need to.”

Sam frowned at the radio before looking back at Lucas and around the room. Most people seemed to be offering the exchange a slight passing glance of attention, but nobody objected to it.

“You know,” Sam found himself smiling as he looked from them. “You kids always surprise me.”

Lucas looked down at the floor, doing his best to conceal the small smile at Sam’s words. “Well, we’ve been doing this a long time,” he said, looking back up. “We’ve learnt a few things along the way.”

Sam smiled. “Well, I’ll be sure to keep you updated,” he promised, trying for a forced attempt at his old genial personality.

“Do you need to borrow a car?” Hopper asked.

Sam shook his head. “No, I’ll… I can walk,” he said softly. “I’ll leave the cars in case you all find yourselves needing to make a quick getaway.”

He leant back against the wall, watching the room slowly spark into the lethargic action of moving towards sleep. Steve stayed where he was, still staring at the patch of floor that seemed several worlds away from him, judging by the look on his face. Jonathan was once again staring at the storm cellar doors that had fallen shut behind Nancy and Billy. Robin, however, smoothed her expression into one that belied any of the pain Sam alone had seen mere minutes earlier, unfolding herself and stretching her legs out across the floor as she gave Dustin a small smile, as though the horrific implications of Steve’s earlier words had held as little meaning for her as they had done for Dustin.

-:-

Nancy climbed awkwardly out into the night, feeling the wind biting at her face. She shot a filthy look at Billy as he followed, closing the storm cellar door behind him.

“Billy, I’m _fine, _I don’t need a _minute_, or _air, _or a goddamn fucking _pep talk-_”

“Good,” Billy snapped bluntly. “Because I sure as hell wasn’t going to give you one.”

“Then _what-_”

“You don’t get to _lose it,_ Princess,” he hissed. “You don’t _get _to break down like that. You sure as _hell _don’t get to lose it like that at _him._”

Nancy felt more than a little defensive at Billy’s words. She felt her eyebrows arch in anger, like a cornered wolf raising her hackles.

“_Excuse me?_” her voice jumped an octave.

“You think you _know _what it was like?” Billy snarled. “You _don’t. _You have _no fucking idea _what he’s been through. So don’t you fucking _dare _talk to him like you _know _him anymore.”

“Oh, because _you _knew him before?” Nancy snarled. “You learnt how he never really wanted to go to college while you were punching his face in? You and he _may _have needed to do some pretty awful things out there, but you’re not _there _anymore. You’re back _here._ You don’t _have _to – _he _doesn’t have to be that person anymore. He can come back home, and find his way back to being his old self-”

Billy gave an incredulous laugh. “_His old self?_” Billy echoed. “_Wow, _Princess, you really _are _that naïve. He’s _never _going to be the same person he was. I just hope that you give enough of a damn about him to accept him for who he is now.”

“Of _course _I care about him!” Nancy bit back, the tears gone in favour of a burning sensation in her eyes, her hands shaking. “But do you _honestly _think that he _wants _to be this person? Hell - do _you?_”

The words finally silenced Billy, no trace of the incredulous, derisive laugh as he glared at her. It was not a look she’d ever seen on his face. There was no trace of the bravado that Billy Hargrove seemed to have permanently engrained into every fibre of his being. The anger in every line of his face was not borne of any testosterone-fuelled antics, but rather a deep hurt that she couldn’t fathom.

“_You_ don’t get to do that,” Billy repeated quietly, his voice low and throaty. “Make your goddamn peace with what’s happened. Don’t you _dare _make your issues our problem. Don’t make them _his _problem. _This_ is the reality now – _this _is the world we’ve been living in for the last eight months. And there’s something we’ve _both _had to learn the hard way, a fundamental truth that is the _reason_ we made it back – back for you to mould him back into the _perfect little Steve _that you had lapping around your feet for a year. And that truth is that there _are, _in fact, some people that deserve to die.”

Billy’s words left a ringing in Nancy’s ears. She stared at him, her heart racing in her chest. Unbidden, the image of Steve, hunched over on the storm cellar stairs, Joyce in front of him and Robin beside him, both of them looking uncertain of whether or not he wanted their physical contact after he’d confessed to the floor that he’d agreed to work for Ozerov to save Billy’s life. She thought about the name of a man she’d never met, Martin Brenner, little more than a name and a picture but who held a special place in their nightmares, capable of torturing and manipulating a little girl from birth along with who knew how many others, giving her a number rather than a name so she’d seem less human. She knew a burning desire for blood herself – she’d _wanted _to kill the Demogorgon after finding out that Barb had been killed, but that was a _monster, _not a man –

But Steve had said _Ozerov _was a monster. Perhaps he was right. From the barest glimpses of the stories she’d heard from Robin and Steve, this man was more than capable of hurting people just as much as Brenner had done. And even now, he was under the control of a monster that _needed _to be killed.

“Maybe you’re right,” she muttered. “Maybe some people _do _deserve to die. But that doesn’t mean that _you _need to be the ones to kill them.”

Billy gave her a long and penetrating look, something unreadable in his eyes.

“Who _else _is going to?” he said simply. “Sometimes, Princess, we’re the only ones that get the _chance. _Hell, sometimes, it’s _our _only chance.”

-:-

Paul felt sick to his stomach.

_He had been right. _All this time, he had been right about Jim Hopper. He had been right, and he had failed to implement suitable measures – and for _what? _He had been so determined to keep Hopper from knowing just how _close _to the truth he’d been that he had let Hopper go, let him go about his daily business because he’d wanted to be certain that when he _did, _at last, try to take Hopper and this whole conspiracy down, he would do it so effectively that it would not survive in any form. That Hopper would be disgraced beyond redemption for what he had done to Steven. To Tom and Janet and Heather Holloway. To so many others in Hawkins. He’d held off to make sure that when justice was, at last done, it would be done _properly._

And because he had waited, it was happening all over again.

Karen and Ted Wheeler were sat in the tiny kitchen that the station had to offer with their youngest daughter, Holly, while Callahan was still out interviewing the only Starcourt survivor that they could account for. Holly kept asking why her mommy was crying. Nobody answered her. Ted Wheeler was alternating between staring into a thousand-mile void between himself and the empty coffee cup on the table as he absently stroked his wife’s back, pulling Holly against his chest and whispering vague, empty placations into her hair, and standing up to take a few steps in the closest thing to pacing he could manage before a hand passed over his face, and the brief fire of disbelieving fury faded back into the thoroughly oblivious Ted Wheeler and he fell down into the chair to absently resume petting his wife’s back.

Karen Wheeler was shaking. They’d been called in to answer a few questions about Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper while the police searched their home, looking for any answer about where their missing children might be, what they might know, if there was any indication that Jim Hopper or Joyce Byers had been exploiting them in any way. Ted Wheeler had made the call to come into the station, uncertain if Karen would be able to handle what the police could potentially uncover. The questions that had followed, however, told a story of two people blindsided by an old family connection, with no idea that these people could have done this.

_“No, I don’t believe it, I _can’t _believe it – Joyce – she’s – I’ve known her for _years. _Nancy and Jonathan have been together for over a _year_ now – they _love _each other – and – and Mike_ _– he and Will have been friends since – since _kindergarten _– and – and Joyce – oh my God – _Joyce _– I was there for her when Will went missing – Holly and I brought her a casserole – she’s – she’s one of my best friends_ _– I can’t believe that she would have done this – or been _involved _with this.”_

_“Unfortunately, Mrs Wheeler, that’s too often how it goes. Every time I’ve spoken to relatives or friends of someone who’s convicted of a crime like this, they always say the same thing. ‘Not them. That’s not the person I knew.’ Unfortunately, it’s not like in the movies. The bad guys often don’t _look _like bad guys.”_

Paul ran a hand over his face. He’d overheard the exchange between Powell and Karen Wheeler – it was one of the last things that Karen had said before turning into the shaking, trembling, silent wreck that she was now. The words rang true in his head – _the bad guys often don’t look like bad guys – _but he’d _known, _hadn’t he? He, _Paul, _had known what Hopper was capable of. He had known because Hopper had already taken Steven away from him. Hopper had started the chain of events that had led to Paul taking his entire life up until that fateful July morning where Hopper had had the gall to appear at Paul’s door and tell him and Linda that Steven was a hero and tearing it up into little pieces with a determination never to let something like this happen again. He had been full of such _confidence _that he could do what was needed to make sure that no other family went through his nightmare, because he was doing it for _Steven. _And now, watching from across the crowded room as Ted and Karen Wheeler went through the same nightmare that _he _had gone through, he would do everything he could to stop it from ending the same way.

Unless he was already too late.

Unless he didn’t know what he was doing.

Unless – unless – _unless_ –

_He didn’t know how to stop it._

Paul let out a shaking breath, trying not to look down at his hands to see how much they were trembling. He swallowed, forcing himself to try and stay calm. There was no guarantee it was going to end the same way –

_There was no guarantee it was going to end any other way –_

He had to stay calm. The decisions made by the people in this room would be the deciding factor in how it would end. He had made difficult decisions in high-pressure situations before. He had changed lives with statements in a courtroom, he had ruined lives with decisions behind closed doors, he had settled feuds and toppled corporate empires with a few words of advice in the right ear. His instincts had been right so far – he needed to keep trusting them. He needed to have faith in himself.

He needed to prove that he was worthy of that faith – of the responsibility he had taken on – and bring Nancy and Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Max Mayfield and Robin Buckley back to their families.

Steeling himself, he made his way across the room.

“Mr and Mrs Wheeler?” he said gently.

Karen Wheeler did not look up, but Ted Wheeler tore his eyes away from the void of space in front of him to look at him. Behind his glasses, Paul saw an all-too-familiar pain shining in his eyes, raw from unshed tears. Paul could see in his face everything he himself had felt eight months ago, the determination to be strong for his wife when all he wanted to do was to break down, to scream out the grinding agony that twisted itself around every fibre of his being into the room without giving mind to anyone watching, to completely lose control of himself without a care for his dignity as he let out the storm that was threatening to swallow him whole if he didn’t, but keeping it all firmly bottled inside him because things still needed to be done before he could, because his _wife _was right there, and he needed to take care of her. Paul took a deep, steadying breath – this was _not _his nightmare. No matter how much it reminded him of his own.

“I’m-”

“Paul Harrington,” Ted breathed. “We met at – at your son’s funeral…”

Paul felt his eyes close for a fraction longer than a blink. He hadn’t remembered – details of that day were blurry, but now that Ted mentioned it, he did remember peroxide blonde hair standing next to the glasses, small blonde pigtails in front of them while dark hair stood sullenly behind them, the adults offering condolences that had been echoed a thousand times before. Karen Wheeler evidently hadn’t kept the peroxide, letting it grow out into darker blonde curls.

“I want you to know,” Paul said, forcing the words out of his throat. “We will do whatever it takes to bring your children home. We’ve found James Hopper and Jonathan Byers’ cars, we’ve set up roadblocks at either end of the road so that if they _do _come back for them, we will get them. We’ve got further support coming in from towns elsewhere. Every police department in the state is looking out for them. We’ve got alerts out in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky if they try to cross state lines. The FBI is working on this as well – they’re sending a liaison to work with us. Every officer in Hawkins is working on this. We will bring your children home, and we will bring James Hopper to justice.”

He spoke more to Ted than Karen, given that the latter’s capability seemed to be limited to not falling off her chair. Still, Ted gave a small nod and a whispered _‘thank you’ _at the lengths that Paul was prepared to go to in order to ensure his children’s safety.

Paul could only hope that it was enough.

-:-

Hopper did not seem to be alone in resigning himself to not getting any sleep that night. Sam Owens, despite his best efforts, spent twenty minutes with his eyes closed before giving up, instead looking at his watch every few minutes. Billy, after emerging through the door with Nancy following close behind, took one look at Steve in an unspoken conversation – or quite possibly argument, going by the look on Billy’s face – before raising an eyebrow and settling down next to him. Steve didn’t even bother _trying _to sleep, and Billy seemed to be staying awake with him either in solidarity or protest. Or quite possibly both.

It was beyond Hopper how the rest of the kids had all managed to drop off. He reasoned that it _had _been an incredibly long night, and now that the adrenaline of the evening had worn off, the kids had found themselves worn down to exhaustion. The bags that Jonathan and Hopper had packed had been firmly delved into, large coats and jackets draped over sleeping forms. Max still had one of the two blankets that Billy and Steve had stolen from Melvald’s draped over her as she curled up next to Billy. Steve had handed the other one to Joyce, who in turn had offered it to Will and El.

For Hopper’s part, even if the twinges in his side were likely to permit it, his mind flatly refused to shut up long enough to allow him to drift off. The notion of what they had discussed, the plan that Steve, Billy, Owens and El had concocted that was certifiably insane, left a wave of nausea that could not wholly be attributed to the occasional burning stab in his side that made itself known if he breathed in too deeply. There wasn’t a single part of the plan that he agreed with, and there wasn’t a single alternative that he could think of that sat any better with him.

Steve hadn’t been wrong about the fact that he and Billy knew the Upside Down better than anyone. Steve had survived for at least a month there while entirely human. Billy had endured at least a month with that _thing _inside him, and he had still returned to himself when it had finally left him. Unlike with Will, he had not lost large parts of his mind to the monster while it had been in control of him, he had not drifted away only to be called back by the unstoppable force that was the love Joyce Byers held for her children. If Billy cared to delve into that part of his psyche, he would probably discover more about that monster than Will. Between them, they had somehow endured months of captivity in the far-flung reaches of greater Siberia, working together to make it home with a veritable mine of information. Hopper was forced to accept that they were crucial to any measure of success of any plan to end this.

As much as he hated the fact, El, too, was crucial. Almost a year of unfettered access to the Gate had given Owens no more of an answer of how to close the Gate than to simply burn what was coming through before El had come along. Hopper remembered standing next to her over a year ago, his heart pounding as his breath had left his body in awe as El had torn his attention away from the monsters that were hell-bent on destroying them with a cry, lifting herself from the thin metal structure as she raised her hands and, with strength and power beyond his wildest imagination, forced the Gate to knit itself back together against its will, a hand flung out to meet the shadow beyond and send it scattering into smoke.

El, Steve and Billy were essential to ending this. Hopper knew that he had to accept that fact. That did not mean that he had to _like _it. Nor did it mean that he had to accept any sacrifice that they offered to make.

The big, unanswered question constantly came back to the forefront of Hopper’s mind. Two people needed to stay behind in the Upside Down to close the Gate. No matter how much Hopper changed the scenario in his head, no matter how it played out, that was an unavoidable truth, an absolute endpoint that could not be changed. Two people needed to stay behind to close the Gate and find the Mind Flayer. The risk was enormous – with so many things hinging on so many dangerous elements that could go wrong, from El not being able to open the Gate to the Mind Flayer capturing those that stayed behind, Hopper could not ask anyone to take that risk – he could not, in good conscience, _allow _anyone to take that risk. Not after what had happened last time.

_He could still see in his mind’s eye the figure in blue stood beyond the wall of light, only there because Hopper had been in trouble, because Hopper had needed the help of someone, because Hopper had let him come along on their final task, because Hopper had failed to factor in the eventuality that they wouldn’t be in good enough shape to get back to the surface on their own, because Hopper had been in Illinois rather than Hawkins, allowing hours to pass when two kids had found themselves caught up, unprepared, in a Soviet military operation that had seen these children subjected to things that they never should have been subjected to in order to answer questions that they barely had answers to._

The idea of leaving anyone behind again to face horrors of the Upside Down, of the Soviets determined to destroy them, was beyond what Hopper could stomach.

Something else – something that Owens had said – was also refusing to leave Hopper. _Leaving El without much protection._

Hopper knew that El could handle herself. She had faced down far worse than the Soviets without much need for help. He had stood by her side while she had forced back together the rip that she had opened so many months prior, shooting down those _dogs _to stave off the inevitable point where they would be overwhelmed, staying their doom until _after _El had closed the Gate. He knew that in any scenario, El would be the one doing most of the protecting. But leaving her _alone _with a group of unknown soldiers… After everything the Department of Energy had done – after spending _years _robbing El of a childhood beyond what had already been taken by Brenner, to leave her alone with a group of soldiers was unthinkable. He could not lose her. He could not go through that again.

Before he had a chance to think on it anymore, he was disturbed by Sam Owens pushing himself to his feet.

“Are you off?” Hopper asked softly so as not to wake anyone who _had _been lucky enough to fall asleep.

Owens turned to look at him, trying for a smile. “Yeah,” he breathed. “If I’m _walking _this, I want to get an early start.”

Hopper raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not like I’m going to be getting much sleep anyway,” Owens reasoned. “I might as well.”

Hopper gave a one-shouldered shrug before slowly easing himself to his feet. He leaned heavily against the wall, his hand pressed against his side. Owens looked like he was about to protest Hopper’s movement before Hopper shot him a look that told him that he wanted to speak to him somewhere alone before he left.

Hopper was pleasantly surprised to discover that after forcing himself to his feet, walking came much more easily. He moved stiffly, waving away the brief raised heads of the three others who were still awake as he stepped carefully around the sleeping figures on the floor, tucked as they were under jackets and blankets. He stumbled awkwardly up the stairs, deciding to let Owens handle opening and closing the storm cellar door as he stepped out into the cool night air.

The February wind that brushed his face was refreshing, to say the least. After spending hours propped up against the wall with Joyce as a constant, attentive shadow – after spending hours in the same position, contemplating the strange events of the night and the horrific events that had been recounted – Hopper felt a moment of peace settle over him, away from constant eyes, outside of claustrophobic walls that trapped him, a pain in his side anchoring him to reality, to the nightmare that couldn’t _quite _be escaped.

Owens straightened up after closing the trapdoor as quietly as he could so as not to disturb anyone down below. He turned towards Hopper, his face creasing into a smile.

“You sure you’re going to be okay, Doc?” Hopper asked, looking out down a track that had once been fit for a car to drive down.

Owens nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he said. “If I run into any trouble, I’ve got that radio to let you know.”

Hopper nodded tensely.

“Wait here for my signal,” Owens said. “I’ll let you know when we’re ready to move on our end. It’ll probably be a couple of days before we’re set. You should be safe here – well, safer than anywhere else I can think of. Like I said, this place is off the grid – _completely. _You shouldn’t run into any trouble.”

Hopper gave him an unreadable look. “And what if we _do?_”

Sam’s face twisted into a wry smile that looked more like a grimace. “Well, if you _do, _you’ve got the cars. Come to the hospital and we’ll work out the next step from there. Don’t try storming the Lab on your own this time – that’s how we ended up with the Starcourt situation. We need to coordinate if this is going to work.”

Hopper nodded. Now that he had the reassurance that Joyce wasn’t going to deter the wheels of government by yelling down the phone like it was a parent-teacher conference, he knew that waiting was entirely necessary.

“I know you’re worried,” Owens said softly. “I get it. But you’re not the only person looking out for those kids. Whatever happens, I won’t let anything happen to them. Not on my watch.”

Hopper looked at him, no pretence of a smile or any confidence left in his face as he finally exposed the raw fear in his eyes to Owens.

“That’s not always going to be your call to make, Sam.”

Owens nodded gently, acknowledging the truth in Hopper’s words. He didn’t bother insulting him with further placations, instead offering out a hand.

“Goodbye, Jim,” he said with a small smile. “And good luck. I hope it all works out.”

“You too,” he muttered with a nod as he took his hand.

Owens let go a moment later, turning and walking down the path, only the vaguest trace of the slight limp that he would never truly be rid of as he walked down the track and out of sight. Hopper watched him go, feeling a bone-deep exhaustion settle over his shoulders. His eyes fell closed as he brought a hand up to rub them –

_He was standing next to El, watching as her feet lifted themselves off the ground as she threw out her hand to stop the Shadow advancing on her –_

_He was standing on the causeway, looking through the wall of light at the figure in blue that was looking back at him with a resigned sadness in his eyes –_

_He was carrying the small, frail girl in his arms into his Cruiser, blood streaking down her nose as she lay still, completely and utterly spent –_

_He was sitting on the floor, watching Joyce kneel in front of the kid who could no longer be thought of as a kid, tears falling involuntarily down his face as words of comfort left his own lips, each one feeling woefully inadequate as the kid took them like a lifeline, clinging to them –_

_Always standing by –_

_Always picking up the pieces after the fact –_

“Hey.”

Hopper turned to see Joyce emerging from the storm cellar, a smile on her lips as she walked over to him. He felt his face break into an involuntary smile as she walked over to him.

“Hey,” he muttered back.

She took a deep breath in before exhaling, her eyes falling shut and staying that way longer than strictly necessarily.

“You okay?” he breathed.

Her lips pulled themselves into a smile as her eyes stayed closed.

“Yeah,” she breathed back. “Just one hell of a day.”

Hopper couldn’t argue with that.

“I can’t believe it,” Joyce’s voice was little more than a whisper. “_Steve._”

Hopper gave her a small nod, not quite meeting her eyes.

“You okay?” she asked him gently.

Hopper tilted his head noncommittally.

“I screwed up,” he breathed, his tone flat. “Now I’ve got to pick up the pieces.”

Joyce’s hand found his and her fingers interlocked themselves with his.

“It’s not just _you, _you know,” she pointed out gently. “It’s _never _been just you-”

“_I _made the call,” Hopper’s breath caught for a moment before he forced it out again. “It’s _my _responsibility.”

She gave him a long, hard look, closing the gap between them. He took his other hand, positioning her body so that he had to turn away to avoid meeting her eyes.

“Hop,” she breathed. “You can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t take care of _everyone _at once. I _know _it’s hard, but they’re _not _little kids anymore. Steve and Billy saved our _lives _tonight. _El _– well, you _know _how many times she’s saved our lives. They’re stronger than you give them credit for. You’ve… you’ve got to trust that they won’t let anything bad happen to each other.”

“Joyce…”

“You don’t have to do this _alone, _Hop,” she continued. “You’ve _never _been alone in this. I’ll stand by your side no matter what. We’ll make sure the kids are safe this time.”

Hopper, at long last, met her eyes, burning as they were with determination, a fire inside her that would not be extinguished.

“We’ll make sure _all _the kids are safe this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it took me a very long time to get this chapter right... I know literally nothing happened plot-wise, but I spent an awful lot of time working out all the finer points of the climax and what all of that was going to look like. In and amongst all that was a certain amount of character development that still needed to happen, just exploring some finer points to gear up for the climax. Also I may or may not have realised that I'd still left a few plot holes open so they needed a bit of semi-plausible closing... (Shh, don't tell anyone!)


	45. Part 4 Chapter 10: Double Trouble

Powell looked up as Callahan walked into the bullpen, more than a little relieved that Ted and Karen Wheeler had gone back to their house so as not to see the look on his face.

“It’s official,” Callahan huffed as he flopped into his chair. “Kids are the _worst._”

Powell’s eyebrows shot up. “Interview went _that_ well?”

Callahan looked up at him with wide eyes as he shook his head slightly, his lips parted a fraction. “She’s a fucking _nightmare._”

“She’s an eleven-year-old girl, Phil,” Powell deadpanned.

“_Exactly!_” Callahan threw up his hands in exasperation. “Like I said: _nightmare._”

Powell couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Phil, her brother’s missing.”

“Yeah, you’re telling _me,_” he scoffed. “You’d _think _that’d make her a bit more cooperative, but it really, _really _didn’t.”

Powell’s eyes travelled over to Mayor Harrington, who had just spotted Callahan.

“Officer Callahan,” Harrington said briskly. “What did the sister say?”

Callahan turned in his chair with a look of extreme frustration. “Well, she definitely _knows _something,” he huffed. “Told me as much herself. But then we ran into – I shit you not – a _non-disclosure agreement._”

Powell didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t _that. _He sat up straighter in his chair glancing from Callahan to Harrington –

_Who didn’t look surprised at all._

His eyes fell shut in resignation for a moment before he opened them again. Callahan had completely missed the brief but baffling expression on Harrington’s face, rambling on about what else Erica Sinclair had said.

“…Yeah, she’s going on and on about how it’s _‘above my paygrade’. _And _God, _the way she said it, you’d have thought I just took out the trash here. I mean, it’s not as though I’m trying to _find her brother _or anything. _Little_ _shit…_”

Harrington raised a hand before Callahan could embark on another tirade. “Did she say _who _asked her to sign the NDA?”

Callahan nodded. “Uh – yeah, the Chief and some…” he checked his notes, “some _‘Energy Doctor’. _Whatever _that _means. She said it was from the government.”

Harrington frowned at him, scrutinising his every move. “This Energy Doctor, does he have a _name?_”

Callahan glanced down at his notes. “Uh… she said it might have been Owens or something. She wasn’t very sure-”

“_Owens?_” Harrington echoed incredulously. “Doctor Sam Owens? From the Department of Energy?”

Powell’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Sir, how do you-”

But Harrington was already striding out of the room. Powell glanced at Callahan, who was looking as confused as Powell felt, before Powell pushed himself to his feet.

“Sir!” Powell called as he tried to catch up with Harrington. “_Sir!_”

“With all due respect, Powell, I don’t have time for this right now-”

“Well, sir, with all due respect to _you, _we’re currently investigating the last person who shut us out, so keeping things to yourself that could be pertinent to an ongoing investigation isn’t exactly sitting well with me right now,” Powell found himself snapping. “You seem to know an _awful _lot about what’s going on here, and given that you’ve placed _me _in charge of investigating my last boss for murder, I think I’ve earned the right to ask you to share what you know.”

He wasn’t entirely sure where the courage to go toe-to-toe with the Mayor had come from, not hiding behind the pretence that even Hopper had tried to hide behind, but when Harrington looked at him, it didn’t hold the barely restrained anger or hatred that he seemed to give Hopper, but rather a certain understanding behind a reluctance. He glanced around before leading Powell into an empty supply closet.

The door fell shut and Harrington ran a hand over his face and up through his hair. Any semblance of control that the man held himself with was stripped back, the fine stress lines on his face seemingly running deeper.

“Sir, what’s going on?” Powell asked tentatively, the fire from his previous outburst gone.

“I don’t know,” Harrington breathed, his voice ragged and nothing like the steady, intimidating voice that had had Hawkins eating out of the palm of his hand following a tragedy. “I don’t know anything for certain. But for a while now I’ve started to suspect that there was more to Starcourt than what the authorities told us.”

Powell wasn’t sure how much higher his eyebrows could go. “I never took you for a conspira-”

“I’m _not,_” Harrington’s eyes shot a glare across the room. “But there were too many unanswered questions about that night. Doctor Owens from the Department of Energy was in charge of the inquiry, and apparently, he asked Erica Sinclair to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He was also in charge of that Lab that was responsible for the death of that Holland girl. The Starcourt survivors were all wrapped up in this – Joyce Byers was dating the Radio Shack employee that _died _at that Lab at the time, her son went _missing _only for Hopper to find him, completely without any assistance from the rest of the Hawkins PD.”

Powell felt himself frowning at Harrington. “Sir, that sounds like a stretch-”

“_Does it?_” Harrington looked at him strangely. “Based on everything you’ve seen tonight – dead Feds at Joyce Byers’ house – all the Starcourt survivors unaccounted for save for one – a _non-disclosure agreement _from the man in charge of the Starcourt Inquiry – who, incidentally, is the same man who covered up the death of Barbara Holland and ran the Lab when Bob Newby died suddenly – is it _truly _that hard to believe that there’s more to this?”

Powell’s honest answer was _yes, _but laid out like that – to find that the _same _group of people who had survived Starcourt had gone missing in the face of the murders of two federal agents – Powell didn’t believe in coincidences at the best of times.

“Okay,” he said in a voice of forced calm. “For the sake of argument, let’s say that there _is _some giant conspiracy going on here. What’s happening _now? _Why kill those Feds?”

Harrington looked at him with a terrifyingly terrified look in his eyes. “I don’t know,” he breathed. “But I know that we _need _to find those kids before they end up like my son.”

-:-

The sky had lightened to an overcast grey as Sam found himself waiting outside the equally grey building. For the seeming three hundred and sixty odd days of the year that Sam did _not _need it to coordinate large-scale government operations in and around Hawkins to control the tear in time and space into another hellish dimension that had been opened up by his predecessor, it largely functioned as a training facility for new or soon-to-be military doctors. Now, however, he found himself fighting off the cold wind with nothing but his arms as it sought to break through his jacket and chill his muscles as he waited for –

The silver sedan pulled up, and the tall, imposing figure of Colonel Shrive unfolded himself from the front seat of the car. Six foot four, his hair closely cropped to his head, the square jaw seemed to set the tone for the rest of him. Broad shoulders gave way to an equally broad chest, wide-set hips and a body that for all intents and purposes could have been built entirely of muscle, Sam was secretly pleased to be seeing him in the daylight. He could have lesser men pouring out their darkest secrets from fear alone simply by standing in the same room as them with a locked door and no company.

Absurdly, Sam wondered how Shrive had fitted into the tiny sedan.

The mental image of the enormous hulking mass of military power with his knees cramped against his chest in a car seat that was objectively too small for him as he struggled to maintain some semblance of dignity detracted enough from the intimidating physique for Sam to hitch up a genial smile as he held out a hand for Shrive.

“Colonel Shrive,” Sam said. “It’s been a while.”

_Almost eight months exactly._

Shrive ignored the hand Sam stretched out for him. In fact, he ignored Sam altogether, walking straight into the hospital with the assumption that Sam would be following in his wake. Sam tried not to take it personally as he followed at a speed that felt far faster than what Sam would have called _‘natural’._

“What’s the situation?” Shrive finally broke his silence as he led the way through winding corridors towards the wing of the hospital that Sam had once nicknamed _‘the bureaucracy wing’ _as a joke. It was on the ground floor, a series of offices and board rooms which were hardly ever used.

“Well, as I said on the phone,” Sam said with a slight bite of impatience in his voice as the door to one of the board rooms swung open and Shrive led the way inside, “we have another Soviet incursion. They’ve run a clandestine operation that has involved them taking over Hawkins Laboratory to try and recreate one of Brenner’s experiments.”

Shrive’s resting glare didn’t change as he focused on Sam. “The same experiment that they were trying to recreate beneath Starcourt?”

Sam nodded.

“Have they been successful?”

Sam bit his lip uncomfortably. “Unfortunately, yes,” he muttered. “More so than they were last time. I also have a source that tells me that they haven’t only succeeded in recreating it _here, _they’ve also succeeded in recreating it in Kamchatka.”

That prompted slightly more of a reaction in Shrive, his eyes widening slightly.

“I thought you said that was impossible,” Shrive’s voice was accusing. “I thought you said that it was localised, that only _we _had that technology-”

“Yes, so did _I,_” Sam felt a slight hint of frustration at Shrive’s tone. “However, they seem to have found their _own _way of recreating it.”

Shrive’s resting glare settled back in place, but a slightly troubled look came into his eyes as he looked around the room, walking back towards the door and locking it before turning to Sam.

“Owens.”

_So he _did _remember his name._

Shrive fixed him with a look that bore a certain gravitas, as though he was about to impart state secrets onto Sam – which, to be fair, was highly probable.

“Do you _know _what Brenner was working on before his death?”

Sam’s eyes flicked to his right as he tried to remember what he knew – and what he _shouldn’t _know.

“He was working on the MK Ultra project, wasn’t he?”

Shrive closed his eyes and nodded. “This is not to leave this room, but his work at Hawkins Lab was a direct result of that. One of the subjects of MK Ultra was pregnant during the project, and when she gave birth, the child began presenting… _abilities._”

Sam schooled his expression into what he hoped was surprise, as though what Shrive was telling him was brand new information.

“The child disappeared after Brenner’s death,” Shrive went on to explain. “It was presumed dead, however it was never confirmed. _If _the child survived, _if _the child has found its way to the Soviets, this could prove dangerous beyond reckoning. The child was the reason that Brenner’s initial experiment was successful-”

“Colonel, with respect, I wouldn’t class it as a success,” Sam’s voice rose slightly above its natural pitch as he felt his gut tighten in trepidation. “It caused the deaths of almost every employee of Hawkins Lab over that period, as well as wreaking havoc on a town and resulted in the deaths of two innocent civilians.”

Shrive didn’t smile, but his gaze softened slightly, downgrading itself from galvanised steel to somewhere in the realm of iron or quite possibly lead.

“For once, we agree,” Shrive nodded. “Which is why we cannot let the Soviets get away with this, particularly if they have found this child. So tell me, Owens, where in Kamchatka _is _this replication?”

Sam bit his lip. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “But I have sources who are planning on recovering this information. They just need… _assistance._”

Shrive raised his eyebrows, his gaze hardening back to galvanised steel. “_Assistance?_” he echoed dubiously. “What kind of assistance?”

Sam closed his eyes – after everything that Shrive had said about Brenner’s experiment, hearing the way that he had described Jane Hopper, he did not feel fully inclined to trust Shrive with _all _the details at this stage.

That said, if Hopper and the others attempted their plan without military assistance, who knew _how _that could end.

“I’ve planned an operation,” Owens explained. “My sources can recover the intelligence from Hawkins Lab, but they will need military backup as and when the time is right. And once they _have _the information of where the replication is, we need to destroy the Soviets’ Kamchatka operation immediately, before they have time to pack it up.”

Shrive’s eyebrows moved slightly closer to each other, a movement almost imperceptible save for the slight deepening of the crease between his eyebrows.

“Your source,” Shrive asked. “Is it James Hopper?”

Sam didn’t like that question. He _really _didn’t like that question. Nothing good had _ever _come from a question like that.

“I know you’ve had dealings with him in the past, Owens,” Shrive said. “But you should know that we can’t authorise any operation with him involved. Not at this stage. It could compromise the entire Department.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up towards his hairline as he felt a wave of nausea rising in his chest.

“What?”

“James Hopper is radioactive right now, Owens,” Shrive explained. “Or have you not seen the news?”

Sam felt his eyes widening slightly, his chest expanding as his breath hitched. “What are you talking about, Colonel?”

Shrive _did _raise his eyebrows at that. “Last night, James Hopper became the prime suspect in the murder of two FBI agents. The investigation is currently the top story in the state. If our Department gets linked to James Hopper, we could find decades of our work that has been kept secret for reasons of national security opened up not just to the country but to the world. Whatever you have planned, James Hopper cannot be involved.”

Sam closed his eyes for a second longer than a standard blink before nodding, his stomach tightening as he finally found some thread of resolve in the face of words and threats left unspoken.

“Well, Colonel,” he hitched up his signature smile that belied the discomfort he felt about bending the truth slightly. “I can tell you entirely truthfully that, on _this _occasion, James Hopper is not my source about the Soviets’ Kamchatka operation.”

-:-

Every inch of Lucas hurt as he finally pulled himself from sleep. A night on the hard floor under the corner of blanket that Max had offered out to him had left most of his body aching as he stretched, standing up as his body screamed out in protest at the movement. He looked around, seeing everyone else in the room asleep. Even Joyce and Hopper had managed to drop off, Hopper awkwardly propped up against the wall with Joyce’s head leaning on his shoulder.

There were two very notable absences in the room – Steve and Billy weren’t in the room. Lucas noticed the water bottles that they had been drinking out of had been filled up, propped up against the walls. His eyes flitted up towards the doors in the ceiling, and he carefully picked his way over the various sleeping figures as he made his way towards the stairs.

He winced as he opened the door to see daylight streaming in. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright light as he stumbled out, doing his best to shut the door behind him with some semblance of quiet as he blinked, the white light still burning against his eyes. He blinked as he glanced around, taking in the complete absence of Billy and Steve –

A soft laugh came from some way below him as he found himself turning towards the hill that he had completely failed to notice in the shock of the previous night. He walked towards the crest of the hill and found himself glancing down to see Steve and Billy lying in the grass on the hillside, Billy passing one of Hopper’s Marlboros over to Steve as their faces were creased with laughter at something that Lucas hadn’t heard. Both had their arms folded behind their heads, lying back as they looked out over the stream, Steve’s right hand disturbing his restful posture as he took the cigarette, leaving Billy’s hand free to settle back into the comfortable, relaxed position. Lucas watched as for a moment, he remained unnoticed by both of them, Steve giving the first genuine, uninhibited smile that Lucas had seen on his face since he’d appeared at Will’s back door, while Billy was watching him with the first genuine, uninhibited smile that Lucas had seen on his face _ever. _It was strange and more than a little jarring to watch these two figures that Lucas could only envision at loggerheads smiling and sharing a cigarette, Billy for once in his life content to just watch Steve enjoy himself –

_Lucas was falling away from the bookshelf as Steve pushed his way between him and Billy, the punch sailing through the air –_

Steve blew a terrible attempt at a smoke ring into the air above him, snorting with laughter as Billy raised an eyebrow as it came out as more of a cloud than anything discernible –

_Lucas was pressing himself back against the wall as the plate smashed against Steve’s head, hating himself as he positioned himself slightly behind Dustin and Mike as Billy advanced on the staggering form of Steve –_

Billy took back the cigarette and made a slightly better attempt at a smoke ring, only an improvement by the fact that at least it was recognisable as a ring shape –

_Lucas could feel himself shaking slightly with fear and adrenaline as Billy grabbed Steve by the front and threw him across the room, watching as Steve slid across the paper covered floor –_

Steve snatched the cigarette and rather than doing another attempt at a smoke ring, simply inhaled a lungful of smoke quickly before blowing it out at Billy’s smoke ring, sending the ring breaking up into the atmosphere –

_Lucas’ heart was racing as he was yelling with Mike and Dustin, otherwise completely powerless as Billy’s fists slammed themselves down repeatedly on Steve’s face, blood covering bruised knuckles –_

Billy gave a low, deep laugh as Steve’s face creased with amusement, the same laugh that Lucas had heard earlier spilling from Steve’s lips.

“You’re a fucking moron, Harrington,” Billy laughed.

“I never pretended not to be a sore loser,” Steve chuckled. “I-”

Steve broke off as he suddenly noticed Lucas at the top of the hill.

“Hey, Lucas,” Steve said. “You alright?”

Caught out by the reveal, he found Billy twisting his head up to look at him. Lucas turned away quickly, peering through the trees to one side as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Uh – I was just looking for somewhere to – to-”

Steve fortunately seemed to fill in the blanks himself and nodded with understanding.

“Don’t go too far,” he said gently as he turned back towards the hill, taking another drag on the cigarette before Billy reached across and plucked it out of his hands with mild, passing annoyance.

Left with not much choice but to find a tree or a bush, he stepped away from the edge of the hill, walking away from the clearing and into the trees. He could still hear the occasional laugh coming from the slope, along with a mildly indignant protest of _“screw you, Hargrove, I’m out of practice,” _from Steve before their voices faded into a low rumble of conversation, more from them dropping their voices rather than Lucas moving away.

Eventually, Lucas turned back towards the hillside, staying out of their eyeline as he froze with one hand on the storm cellar –

“_Sinclair!_”

Lucas’ eyes fell shut at the sound of his name, an all-too-familiar kick of anxiety shooting through his stomach at the sound of Billy calling his name. A part of him wanted to ignore it, to pretend that he hadn’t heard and go back into the storm cellar, but he resisted the urge. _He wasn’t scared of Billy Hargrove._

_Even if he had watched him blow a man’s brains out over Joyce Byers’ kitchen ceiling less than twenty-four hours previously._

“Sinclair – uh – _Lucas_…” Billy called again, more softly this time as Lucas straightened up, turning back towards the hillside. He saw Billy getting to his feet and walking up the hill, looking at him with a strange trepidation that looked entirely foreign on his face. Absurdly, he wondered if _Billy Hargrove _was _nervous._

“What?” Lucas asked in a voice that was not quite the neutral tone he’d been aiming for, a certain defensive edge to it.

“I was – I was wondering if – if we could – uh – _talk?_” Billy’s every word sounded pulled out from his mouth with a certain reluctance or unease, and it left Lucas feeling equally uneasy. Billy Hargrove didn’t _ask. _He didn’t stammer out requests. He didn’t request _anything, _he just assumed that anyone who might have a problem with what he wanted would either be too infatuated or too terrified to say no.

A part of Lucas _did _want to say no. He certainly couldn’t imagine a conversation with Billy Hargrove ending well. The slurs that had danced on the tip of Neil Hargrove’s tongue at Lucas’ only meeting with the man rang in his ears – _he could feel the man before him holding him off the ground_ _against the bookcase with hate in his eyes –_

He glanced over at Steve, pushing himself to his feet as he watched the two of them warily. Again, Steve seemed to understand the reservations that Lucas must have felt – it occurred to Lucas that he must have shared in those reservations at some point. Steve gave him an encouraging smile and a tiny nod.

_It’s okay. You’ll be fine._

Lucas found himself nodding tensely at Billy, not quite meeting those blue eyes. He saw Billy’s face crease into a relieved, albeit still somewhat uneasy, smile. Lucas glanced at Steve, whose own smile widened to crease his eyes as he reached the top of the hill, walking past Lucas with a pat on the shoulder.

“If you need me, I’ll just be inside,” Steve said as he walked towards the rusted trapdoor set in the ground. Lucas shot him a look of certain trepidation which made the smile on Steve’s face drop a fraction as he opened the door. There was a seriousness in Steve’s eyes that told him that he was not, in fact, leaving Lucas to the wolf known as Billy Hargrove. The door closed behind Steve, leaving Lucas alone with Billy.

Lucas turned back to look at Billy, finally taking in his face, surprised that Billy seemed to be just as incapable of meeting his eyes as Lucas had been a moment ago. Billy seemed to be as unsettled as Lucas, his weight not quite settling on one foot for long enough to stay still. He stood on the crest of the hill, the four-foot gap between them as impassable as a gaping chasm. Billy glanced out over the hill, his short blonde hair catching the wind that blew through the forest.

“I – uh – I don’t really know how to say this,” Billy finally forced out, pulling his head round with visible effort from over the hill back towards Lucas. He still didn’t meet Lucas’ eyes, focusing instead on a patch of dirt on the floor. “But – _fuck _– you deserve it, even if you don’t want it.”

Lucas felt his frown deepen.

“I owe you an apology,” Billy continued. “I never should have treated you like I did back – back _then. _I’m sorry.”

Lucas didn’t need Billy to clarify what he meant by _then. _He felt his eyebrows shooting up at the words, because the Billy Hargrove that had featured in more than a few of his nightmares _never _said ‘sorry’.

That did _not _mean, however, that Lucas was prepared to accept it.

“I’m not trying to make excuses,” Billy breathed. “Because there _aren’t _any. But you deserve an explanation. You deserve a chance to know _why._ Even if it doesn’t make it okay.”

Lucas felt something in his stomach clench, a slight feeling of nausea settling at the back of his throat.

“It was – it was never about _you,_ Sin– _Lucas,_” Billy corrected at the last minute.

“No, it was just about people who _look _like me.”

The words left Lucas’ mouth before he could stop them. He could still hear Neil Hargrove’s voice screaming insults at Max all those months ago. He could still hear the fear in his father’s voice afterwards, still feel the tightly coiled tension in his parents’ bodies as they’d taken him from Neil Hargrove’s house towards the car after slurs never reached their completion.

_So this is your little boyfriend? Your little n-_

_Spend your time living with those fucking w-_

Billy’s eyes drifted closed, words that would have once escalated the situation out of Lucas’ control finally stopping Billy in his tracks.

“I deserved that,” Billy muttered. “I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a part of it at the time, but there… there were _other _things going on that night.”

Lucas wasn’t sure if he wanted to listen to this. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Max had said after she’d finally snapped at Neil –

“My dad was… angry…” Sure enough, Billy confirmed Lucas’ suspicions. “He had a lot of anger, and a lot of hate for a lot of people with not a lot of reason. He spent years fighting for this country where the only people he could trust were the people who looked like him. He spent a long time telling me that, and he’d get angry when I didn’t listen.”

_And hadn’t Lucas seen Neil Hargrove angry, stood above Max, a hand raised as Lucas pushed himself between the two –_

“My dad would get angry about a lot of things,” Billy shook his head, speaking with the same detachment as he’d used last night when he’d explained that Steve hadn’t just been interrogated _once. _“I knew what would happen if he found out about Max hanging around with you. I wanted to keep Max out of it, and _yeah, _a part of me believed that you weren’t good for her. She’d always be upset after spending time with you, so I thought there _might _have been some truth in what my dad had said.

“And then Max ran off with you that day,” Billy explained. “She’d snuck out without a word, and I knew it was to go running off with you. But my dad came home and – well, he wasn’t _happy. _And he took it out on me. So when I found Max with you and Steve tried to lie to me about it – well, _I _wasn’t happy. She’d put me in the crosshairs because, for all I knew, _you’d _put her up to it to go running off and putting her in danger. So I did what I always did – I took it out on you.”

Lucas gave him a searching look. He looked deep into the lines of pain, sincerity finding its way into every crevice of Billy’s battle-scarred face.

“I – I know it wasn’t okay,” Billy’s eyes finally met Lucas’. “I screwed up. _God _knows I screwed up. I’m not telling you this to try and make excuses, but you deserve to know everything. I owe you that much. I really _am _sorry. I know there were better ways to handle that. But I assumed. I ran with my first instinct, and I didn’t bother to check. I didn’t bother to listen. I didn’t want to be _wrong. _And I was. I was wrong about _you_, I was… I was wrong about a lot of things. And now, I just want to make it right.”

Max’s words to Neil on Billy rang in his ears, echoing out over the laughter that Lucas had heard the previous night at the news.

_“He was a complete fucking asshole, and everything about him that made him that way came from you!”_

_“Billy, your dad left.”_

_“His hate, his anger, his violence, all of that was because of you!”_

_“He’s gone. Jesus fucking Christ, he’s gone!”_

_“If he’d had a chance to get away from you, he might have had a chance of becoming a decent person!”_

Lucas had never imagined having this conversation with Billy Hargrove. He wondered briefly if Steve had put Billy up to it. He wondered if that mattered.

“Your dad,” Lucas said. “He was military?”

Billy’s eyebrows creased slightly before he nodded.

“Where?” Lucas asked. He didn’t really know _why _he wanted to know this, why it was _important,_ but he needed to know.

Billy’s frown deepened. “Uh – Vietnam,” Billy answered.

Lucas looked out over the hill, staring past Billy.

“So the people he fought,” Lucas said. “They _didn’t _look like me, did they?”

Billy’s eyes fell back to the floor. “No,” he breathed.

“So why did you use it as an excuse for how _he _treated me?”

Lucas looked back at Billy, watching his eyes fall shut.

“My dad had a _lot _of excuses for the worst things he did,” Billy breathed. “Some way to make his actions someone _else’s _fault. He did terrible things, and he’d find a way to make out like he was doing them for the right reasons. If he beat the shit out of me, it was because I didn’t understand _respect and responsibility_ well enough. If he hated certain kinds of people, it was because they deserved it. _They _were the bad guys. They would hurt _us _if they were given half a chance. It was _always_ us versus them. And _‘they’ _expanded until it became most of the world. And then _‘they’ _started to include _me. _Because _he _was the victim. He was the _hero. _And he would fight like a fucking hero against everyone who dared be _different._”

Lucas looked out over the hill, his father’s words coming back to him.

_“When we stand up to people like that… people like that use it as an excuse to destroy us completely.”_

“And what about _you?_” Lucas asked guardedly. “Do you agree with him?”

Billy ran a hand up over his face and through his hair as he tore his eyes away from the floor and up into the trees.

“Didn’t really have any reason not to when he _first _started saying it,” Billy sighed. “But over the years – well, I’ve seen what _real _monsters look like. Not just the shit from the Other Way Up, but real _human _monsters now. And they look a hell of a lot more like my dad than they look like you and yours.”

“What about your dad himself?” Lucas questioned, his voice determinedly neutral. “Where would you say _he _fits into it all?”

Billy’s eyes fell shut as he turned his face down towards Lucas.

“My dad’s one of the worst,” Billy’s eyes opened as they met Lucas’.

Lucas felt his eyes widen a fraction with seriousness as he looked at Billy, taking in the man standing before him. The blue eyes swirled with something Lucas couldn’t name – something Lucas had had no cause to know before this moment. The silence stretched out between them.

“You’re right,” Lucas finally broke the silence. “It’s _not _an excuse. It’s a reason, but it’s not an excuse. It doesn’t make _any _of what happened okay. And I don’t think I can forgive you – at least, not yet.”

Billy nodded in acquiescence. “I understand,” he muttered.

“The reason is _gone, _Billy,” Lucas continued. “You can’t be that person anymore. You have no _reason _to be that person anymore.”

Billy made a brave attempt at a smile as his eyes fell to the floor. “I have plenty of reasons _not _to be that person.”

“Good,” Lucas said bluntly, not returning the smile. “Because Max doesn’t deserve that. Hell, _I _don’t deserve that. So whatever made you want to apologise to me, hold onto it. Be the person _she _deserves. _Then_ we can talk about forgiveness.”

Billy nodded.

“Thank you,” he muttered, giving Lucas a small smile, “for – for giving me a chance to apologise. You don’t – you don’t have to accept it, but – I appreciate it.”

Lucas tilted his head as he turned back towards the storm cellar. “Well, it’s like you said,” he muttered. “I deserve it.”

He ended up leading the way back into the storm cellar and found the room considerably more awake than it had been when he’d left. Mike and Dustin were looking at him with incredulous expressions while Max’s eyes were round. Jonathan was clearly trying to disguise the relief on his face while Nancy was opting to hide her own mixture of emotions as she occasionally shot daggers at Steve. Lucas frowned at the room, taking in the various expressions of surprise as he tried to piece together the reason –

“You’re _alive,_” Max said incredulously.

_Oh._

“I told you,” Steve shrugged. “It’s _fine_. Right, Lucas?”

Lucas didn’t smile, but his lips pulled themselves into his cheeks as he nodded, reaching the bottom of the stairs and leaning against the wall.

“See?” Steve grinned around the room before giving Lucas a sympathetic look. “So how _was _the big brother talk?”

Lucas felt a stab of incomprehension before Billy came down the stairs, swatting the back of Steve’s head as he passed before going and finding one of the refilled bottles of water.

“I didn’t _give _him the big brother talk, you idiot,” Billy said briskly.

A flash of confusion crossed Steve’s face before he understood – Lucas knew that Steve must have had his own version of the apology at some point or another.

“Well, Lucas,” Steve said wryly, “you’ve got that to look forward to at some point.”

Lucas felt his incomprehension go deeper – _what was he on about –_

_Oh._

Billy and Steve didn’t _know._

“It – uh…” Lucas spoke more to the floor as he tilted his head towards Billy. “That won’t be a problem.”

He glanced over at Max who gave him a slightly nervous look. Steve was looking between them blankly, completely lost.

“Am I missing something here?” Steve asked, frowning as he looked around the room.

An uncomfortable silence stretched as Steve looked increasingly confused, nobody quite willing to meet his eye. He glanced over at Billy who looked equally lost, watching Max from behind the water bottle as she tensed under the scrutiny.

“We broke up,” Max finally explained quietly.

Billy spluttered over the water bottle as he pulled it away from his lips, wiping the water that had splashed over his face as his eyes widened in surprise.

“Wait – _what?_” Billy spluttered.

“_Seriously?_” Steve’s eyebrows shot up into his hair as he looked around the room incredulously.

Nobody seemed willing to meet his eyes. Robin eventually looked over at him with a strange expression on her face.

“A lot changed after Starcourt,” she explained, a certain melancholy note finding its way into her voice. “I mean – this is the most civil I’ve seen Max and Dustin be while in the same room since August.”

Steve’s shock intensified as his head swivelled between Max and Dustin, his eyes wide. His lips parted slightly as he very visibly processed something that he’d completely missed the previous night.

“You guys will be telling me Nancy and Jonathan broke up next,” Steve muttered, shaking his head.

Jonathan managed a small smile at that. “No, _we’re _still together…” he muttered, letting the implication hang in the air.

Steve frowned for a second before the penny dropped, sending him leaning forward as disbelieving comprehension dawned on his face as he looked between Mike and El. His mouth fell open as he shook his head, looking over at Robin, strange noises leaving the back of his throat.

“But – last night – you were-” Steve stammered in Mike and El’s general direction –

His eyes fell shut as he remembered the interaction between El and Mike that had caused _quite _such a stir amongst the others. He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding as his head fell forward and his mouth closed. He shook his head as he opened his eyes, looking around the room with a certain trepidation.

“What _happened?_” Steve asked, as though he was afraid of the answer.

Dustin sighed as he leant back against the wall. “You know how you mentioned you saw these Gates that El was opening in the Upside Down?”

Steve frowned as he nodded.

“You know how we said that they stopped when we found out?”

Steve passed a hand over his face as his frown deepened. “Yeah…”

“Well,” Dustin said simply, “that’s what happened.”

An uncomfortable silence fell as Steve looked around the room once again, nobody willing to meet his eye. Lucas looked at the floor as he felt Steve’s eyes rake over him, watching Billy in his periphery as Billy seemed to quietly process the information, much less obviously taken aback than Steve – perhaps as a function of knowing the group less well –

“So hang on,” Billy finally broke the silence. “You all broke up with each other and stopped speaking to each other… because Supergirl and Max were trying to open Gates to bring me back home?”

Lucas felt the muscles in his back tighten as he felt himself tense at Billy’s words. He didn’t know quite what led him to raise his head and look at Billy – perhaps the conversation he’d had just moments ago with Billy might have emboldened him to face down Billy in a way he’d never quite managed to before – but he met Billy’s eyes with a certain defiance.

“It wasn’t quite that simple,” Lucas said determinedly. “Max shut me out for about a month. I didn’t know what she was doing, I didn’t know what was going on, and after meeting your _dad_… I thought the worst. I thought the worst of _Max._”

Billy’s piercing blue gaze didn’t let up, but Lucas didn’t back down. He didn’t look away, he didn’t allow his expression to waver.

“Eventually the truth came out, but it wasn’t because Max _told _me. We found them in the woods and caught them red-handed. And I realised that I couldn’t _trust _her anymore. I understood why she did it, but she didn’t trust me enough to _tell _me. And I didn’t trust her enough to believe the best of her. So yeah – we broke up.”

Billy held his gaze for a moment longer before his eyes fell shut and he turned his head down towards the ground. Lucas felt his stomach twist with a feeling that didn’t quite reach _guilt,_ but had made itself known in an uncomfortable way. Lucas, freed from the trappings of Billy’s scrutinising look found himself looking at the floor. He glanced at Steve who was watching Billy warily. Billy eventually opened his eyes, giving Steve a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. With some visible effort, Steve pulled his eyes away from Billy and looked at Max.

“Why _didn’t _you tell them?” Steve asked softly.

Max’s voice had a brittle edge as she looked at Steve with a determined righteousness. “Because they wouldn’t have _let _me,” she said.

“No,” Dustin broke his silence. “We wouldn’t have. Because _your _plan was _insane._”

“Oh, _screw you, _Dustin!” Max’s voice was rising. “Nobody else was doing _anything. _Nobody ever even _talked _to me about getting Billy back-”

“We didn’t exactly get the _chance_ before you and El started running off to open _Gates _in the woods,” Dustin snarled. “Choosing the most _dangerous _plan you could think of, putting _your _life, _El’s _life and all the _rest _of our lives at risk-”

“What _else _was there?” Max shot to her feet. “I’m _serious, _Dustin, what other option was there?”

“I don’t know, but maybe if you’d _spoken _to us, we could have figured it out instead of you running off like a selfish _bitch-_”

“_WHOAH!_”

Steve shot to his feet, looking incredulous as he glared at Dustin, his eyes wide and visibly wrong-footed by the escalation.

“_Jesus, _Dustin, what the _hell?_” Steve said as his eyes were wide, his eyebrows creased into a shocked, angry expression. Lucas glanced around at the others, mostly still sat on the ground. Hopper rubbed his head like he had a headache. Jonathan and Nancy had slightly drained expressions on their faces. Joyce’s eyes were closed, a slight sadness tightening the muscles around her eyes. Mike’s jaw was clenched, a thousand retorts dancing behind the muscles visible beneath his cheeks. El was looking warily between Max and Dustin, her eyes shining with months of heartache. Will sighed, looking down at the floor with a certain exhaustion. Robin simply had her eyebrows raised at Steve, as if to say, _‘what did I tell you?’ _The only person with no visible reaction to the argument was Billy, his eyes fixed on the floor, his expression faraway.

“It’s not like _she’s _perfect,” Dustin glared past Steve at Max.

“Oh, like that’s an _excuse,_” Max spat.

“Sorry, _how _many times did you punch me in the face?”

“How many times did you call me a _dyke?_”

“I called you a _bitch, _not a _dyke-_”

“Oh, like that’s _so _much better-”

“_Enough!_” Steve finally shouted.

Lucas could have sworn that Steve was going to break his neck from spinning head back and forth between the two, but beyond telling them to stop, he seemed completely at a loss for words. The silence that fell finally gave way to the soft sound of laughter from the _last _person Lucas would have expected it to come from. He, like everyone else, found himself turning towards Billy, who was laughing softly, a fondness in his eyes as he looked at Steve’s completely shellshocked face.

It was unnerving, to say the least. The reaction that Lucas had been expecting was anger – rage – a return to the unhinged Billy Hargrove at the discovery that the simple act of getting him home had caused such problems between the Party, but the laughter was more chilling than any level of anger – more unexpected – more _unpredictable _–

“Steve,” Billy explained, the fondness warming his eyes. His gaze flicked between Max and Dustin before settling on Steve himself, his eyebrows rising.

Whatever Billy was trying to communicate, Steve wasn’t picking it up. His confused frown deepened – as did Dustin’s and Max’s. Billy tilted his head, widening his eyes slightly to emphasise the pointed look he was giving Steve, his eyes flicking downwards towards his feet before back to Steve –

Lucas saw the penny drop for Steve.

He burst out laughing, doubling over. The pair left everyone else in the dark as Steve’s laughter helped further trigger Billy’s laughter, which in turn set Steve off even more –

“What the _hell?_” Dustin vocalised everyone else’s confusion. He was not alone, Jonathan looking between Steve and Billy like she wanted them institutionalised. Nancy and Robin exchanged glances, Robin shooting Nancy a sceptical look as she shrugged slightly. Lucas could see the annoyance bubbling up in Max before she stepped over to Billy and clapped in front of his face.

“Fancy letting us in on the joke?” she snapped.

Billy looked up, tears in his eyes as he raised an eyebrow at Steve over Max’s head.

“You’re _us,_” Billy explained. “You’re _actually us_.”

Hopper let out a groan at those words that epitomised everyone’s feelings as Steve and Billy fell into hysterics. Max was blinking at Billy, a combination of incredulity and exasperation as she looked altogether _done _with Billy. Billy gave her a fond smile as he pulled her into a bone-crushing hug as he whispered a few words into her hair.

“Thanks, shitbird,” he breathed, words only audible to her. “For being in my corner.”

Max looked exasperated as she brought up her arms to return the hug. “Steve’s clearly rubbed off on you,” Max mumbled back. “You’re a complete fucking idiot.”

Billy leant his cheek against the top of her head. “Maybe it’s good it didn’t work out,” he muttered. “It would have _killed _me if that thing had hurt you.”

Max’s smile dropped as she leant against his shoulder. “Maybe,” she breathed. “But it killed _me_ to leave you there.”

Billy broke the hug, bringing his voice up to its normal volume as Steve finally recovered his self-control enough to give him a sympathetic, querying look, the unspoken question dancing between them.

_Are you okay? I know this is a lot, but I need to know if you’re okay._

“It’s like the Chief said last night,” Billy muttered, glancing between Max and Steve, his words more for Max, the smile more for Steve. “We can’t change the past. So we work with what we’ve got. But still…”

His voice dropped again as he looked at Max, a seriousness in his eyes that lent a sincerity to the smile that didn’t fall from his face.

“It means the world that you tried to go back for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not actually dead, I'm so sorry this took me so long to get out. This chapter ever so slightly broke me. I ended up writing two chapters as one and then looked at it and saw that it was about 18,000 words so I split it in two. However, there is another chapter ready to go that acts almost as a second half of this chapter, which I'll post in a couple of days, so you won't have to wait another week and a half! (There's also a bit more on Billy's character development as well as some actual plot, so yay!) But yeah, you guys will need to make do with another character chapter while I recover my sanity from the massive writing spree I went on over the last five days...


	46. Part 4 Chapter 11: Schrödinger’s Corpses

When Paul had been told that a liaison from the FBI was going to be coming to assist on the case involving two dead agents and more than a few missing children, he had been optimistic. He had found himself feeling some wave of relief, a certain satisfaction that he _was _doing everything in his power to fix this – and certainly a hell of a lot more than Hopper or Kline had ever done. However, that relief, that satisfaction had given way to anxiety and panic as the hours ticked past, with no sign of any liaison arriving. Twelve hours after the initial call where some jumped-up secretary had told him that a liaison would be on its way once the Bureau had a handle on where Agent Bateman and Agent Kent were meant to be or what they were working on, Paul still had nothing to show for it. He’d been calling the Department of Energy all morning to absolutely no avail, with nobody having any idea of the whereabouts of Doctor Sam Owens. That, coupled with no knowledge of the whereabouts of this _FBI liaison _that was supposed to be coming, had sent his anxiety through the roof, so he’d started calling around, increasingly finding himself in a circle of red tape that was only getting more and more tangled up in as he felt like a tennis ball in a game between various departments until he got so frustrated that he’d hang up, only to try the same thing again fifteen minutes later.

He would have delegated if it weren’t for the fact that everyone else was just as busy, and a direct call from the Mayor seemed to have a slightly better effect.

It was a little after three in the afternoon – _only thirteen or fourteen hours after Paul had made the initial call to tell the Bureau that two of their agents were found dead in a bloodbath – _when a black sedan pulled up outside the station. Two men who looked like they’d been ripped straight from a Hollywood blockbuster entered the police station – clean-cut suits matched their square jaws, one a slighter build with dark brown hair while the other was stockier, his hair auburn, both equally incapable of smiling. They flashed their badges at the girl on the front desk without a word before walking in the wrong direction down the corridor towards the bathrooms. The girl on the desk called Powell over and he stood watching them as they worked out their mistake, a slightly dubious expression on his face as Paul came up beside him.

_So much for the cavalry._

Eventually, the FBI agents saw Paul and Powell watching them, Powell giving them a small wave before walking up to them and offering his hand out for them to shake.

“Hi,” Powell said with an attempt at a smile. “I’m Acting Police Chief Powell. This is Mayor Harrington-”

“The one who’s been calling our boss non-stop for the last three hours,” the dark-haired one said. His voice was softer than Paul had been expecting as he met the complete lack of warmth from either agent with his own steely glare.

“With respect, it’s a serious situation,” Paul explained, keeping his tone flat. “We’ve got six people dead, four of them unidentified, and nine children missing. We called your department at nearly two o’clock this morning and you’ve only deigned to show up _now_. I would have thought that two of your own being found dead in a massacre would make this a priority.”

_Huh. Maybe it was just law enforcement in general that he didn’t like._

The auburn-haired one raised a single eyebrow at Paul, clearly unimpressed.

“With _respect,_ Mr Mayor,” he bit back, his voice gravelly, “we’ve had our own investigation going on. We will _happily _explain somewhere a little quieter.”

Powell looked decidedly uncomfortable about his role as the civil one in the group as Paul felt his hackles raise. Powell nodded before leading the way to Hopper’s office, which had now been co-opted by both himself and Paul as a place away from the mayhem of everything going on in the bullpen.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your names,” Powell asked as Paul settled himself in Hopper’s chair. Powell elected to lean on the corner of the desk while the two agents settled themselves in the other two chairs.

“Agent McBride,” the dark-haired one said with a nod. “This is Agent Carter.”

Powell nodded. “Well, Agent McBride, would one of you like to tell me why it took you so long to come here after we told you that two FBI agents were killed?”

McBride gave him a wry, humourless smile. “Well,” he said. “We could start with the fact that they weren’t FBI agents.”

Paul managed to maintain his poker face much better than Powell, whose eyebrows shot up.

“I’m sorry?” Powell started.

McBride raised his own eyebrows in return. “Well, you said you found two IDs for agents Frederic Bateman and Harrison Kent.”

Powell nodded. Paul felt his eyes latch onto Carter, watching for his reaction.

“Well, we’ve spent most of the morning verifying that they don’t exist,” McBride said.

“Are you sure?” Powell asked.

“Well, given that we’ve spent this morning _making _sure, yes. We’ve checked with our Director, we’ve checked with all the regional directors, we’ve spoken to most of the remote offices, our Director has checked with the assets off the grid, we’ve checked with our liaisons and joint ops with other agencies, we’ve been checking with the respective directors of those agencies, and – well, that took most of the morning. So we’ve been ordered to come down here and inspect the IDs themselves, because the Bureau has just confirmed the hard way that whatever IDs you found are fakes.”

“If you could go and _get _the IDs to show to us, that’d be great,” Carter growled at Powell.

Paul raised his eyebrows dubiously at Carter, shooting his coldest glare at the man from behind Powell’s back. Carter seemed largely unfazed by Paul’s displeasure while Powell sat for a minute, looking as guarded as Paul felt as he glanced back at Paul. Paul gave him a tiny nod before Powell stood up, walking out of the room. Carter and McBride both leant back in their chairs, Carter never taking his eyes from Paul while McBride fished out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket.

“I’d prefer it if you _didn’t _smoke in here,” Paul said dryly, looking sideways towards the filing cabinet.

McBride fixed him with an unreadable look that Paul met for the briefest moment. McBride shrugged, stowing the cigarettes back in his jacket as he leant back.

“Can I ask you something?” McBride’s voice took on a genial quality.

“Evidently, given that you just _did,_” Paul deadpanned, not bothering to turn to look at him.

McBride gave that same wry smile. “Well,” he began. “I’ve seen hands-on Mayors before. Sure, they’re a bit full of their own self-importance, elected top of the tiny town politics tree, but most don’t come down to micromanage their police department in a crisis. They don’t like to be shut out, but most Mayors don’t go to _these _lengths to be kept in the loop.”

Paul finally turned to fix McBride with a what he hoped was an unreadable look. “I’m not most Mayors,” he said dryly.

“Clearly,” McBride shrugged. “Mind if I ask _why_ you’re here micromanaging? What’s your angle – is this personal or something?”

Paul fixed McBride with a cold look. “I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”

Carter gave a derisive snort, but unlike McBride, the man seemed allergic to smiling even humourlessly. “It’s the same reason you’ve got an _Acting _Police Chief.”

Paul turned to look at him.

“We noticed the title,” Carter raised an eyebrow. “We’re _paid _to notice these things. Your _real _Police Chief isn’t here. Now, you’re sat in his chair like it’s nothing. Sure, Powell or whatever his name is has the title, but _you… _you’re the one _really _running the show in his absence.”

Paul held his gaze for a moment.

“You’re an interesting man, Mr Mayor,” McBride observed, a calculating smile playing around his lips. “You don’t exactly fit the mould. The vast majority of politicians _I’ve _encountered generally have a bit of _likeability_. But you didn’t bat an eyelid at pissing us off within less than a minute of us arriving. You sit in that chair like it’s a _throne_ you’ve taken from the old king of the _Hawkins Police Department _and you’re supervising a police investigation because you don’t trust his deputies. Your Acting Police Chief _knows _it. It’s highly unorthodox and it’s rubbing everyone up the wrong way. You’re not a career politician, and your political career isn’t going to last very long for it unless you’re effective in your _quest _that’s pissing everyone off. It’s an attitude that would play _very _well in a big city, but less so in a small town, and I’d _guess_ that that’s where you learnt it.”

McBride watched Paul for a reaction at that. Paul didn’t give him one, letting himself blink once under his glare. McBride, however, took that for all the confirmation he needed.

“I thought so,” he muttered quietly. “So go on – what _is _it that’s driving you to piss off everyone in the department? How did a man like you end up as Mayor of this two-bit town?”

McBride’s smile widened into something almost predatory as he leant forwards in his chair. Paul’s glare deepened as he finally let himself speak.

“My son passed away,” Paul said coldly.

McBride’s smile fell from his lips as he leant back, but his eyes still held a triumphant gleam in them. “I’m sorry,” he said in a passable imitation of sincerity. “Recently?”

Paul didn’t let his expression change. “Last summer.”

Understanding blossomed over Carter’s face. “Your life’s changed a lot since then, Mr Harrington,” Carter said. “You give up your career to pursue local politics after losing your son to the Starcourt Tragedy-”

That threw Paul. “I never said he died in Starcourt-”

“You didn’t have to.”

Paul found himself looking at Carter, his stomach clenching uncomfortably for the first time, Carter’s eyes shining with more knowledge than Paul was comfortable with.

“You gave up a law firm you spent your life building from the ground up,” Carter said, his gravelly voice barely more than a growl as he nodded at Paul’s slight expression of surprise. “Yeah – we _know _the law firms in Indianapolis, it’s not hard to connect you to the same Harrington from Harrington Spencer that lost his kid in Starcourt.”

“Headline news after Independence Day,” McBride shrugged. “That’s one _hell _of a reason to change your life.”

Paul held McBride’s gaze for another moment longer before allowing himself to blink.

“I swore I’d fix what was wrong with this town,” Paul finally explained coldly, forcing all emotion from his voice. “I couldn’t keep him safe, but I can make sure that his death was the last avoidable tragedy that this town has to suffer. That will be worth any sacrifice I’ve made.”

_It needs to be worth it._

Carter leant back in his chair, looking at his hands as he finally allowed a smile to grace his lips. “So it _is _personal,” he muttered to himself.

-:-

Something about only having cold cans of soup in the storm cellar did wonders for the conversation. And by wonders, it did wonders in _Hopper’s _eyes, meaning that everyone at last shut up for five minutes, easing up the constant pressure that was being put on his headache.

Mike had at _last_ stopped talking. While most had opted to accept the fact that they were not going to be dining on haute cuisine for a few days and were forcing down what little they could stomach, Mike had wrinkled his nose at it with a quiet _‘no thanks’._ Nancy had tried to protest before Billy had silenced her with a shrug.

_“If he wants to go hungry for a few days, that’s his problem. I’m not stopping him. I don’t give a shit. He knows where it is if he wants it.”_

The implication was clear. Mike could do what he wanted, but Billy was not going to tolerate his complaints. So Mike had found himself rather sullenly sat in a corner watching the others while Steve hid a _very _satisfied smirk behind a can. Billy had no such qualms about hiding it, the smirk proudly offered to the room for everyone to see. Mike would occasionally glare at it, but as of yet, no word had passed his lips.

Gradually, small bubbles of quiet conversation started to emerge amongst the room. Lucas and Will were chatting quietly, while Robin, Dustin and Max had congregated in a corner with Steve and Billy, catching them up on everything else they’d missed in their absence. Hopper found himself watching Steve carefully, the sad smile that played around his lips as he looked down into his lap while Robin told him about his dad leaving the law firm and running for Mayor.

“So he’s moved back to Hawkins full-time?” Hopper heard Steve ask softly.

“It’s quite hard to run a town remotely,” Robin said by way of explanation. “Apparently he’s been giving Hopper a really hard time.”

Robin found herself looking over at Hopper, clearly aware that he’d been watching them for a while. Steve glanced up and over at him. Hopper found himself looking at his knees, waiting for the inevitable interrogation –

“Yeah, he does that,” Steve muttered softly, more to himself than anyone else. Hopper wouldn’t have heard it at all if he hadn’t been listening out for it. The sad smile didn’t fall from his face as he looked back at the floor, a fondness in his eyes as Billy changed the subject.

“What about – uh… _school?_” Billy cast around for a topic that he evidently hoped was slightly less close to home. Hopper watched as, just as he had done the previous evening, Billy shifted the attention away from Steve and onto himself, giving Steve a minute to gather his thoughts.

“Well, everyone’s taken to calling me a dyke, so there’s _that,_” Max explained.

“Wait – _seriously?_” Steve’s head snapped up towards Max before flicking between Robin and Dustin.

“_Nobody _in this room has called Max a dyke,” Dustin said flatly.

“Give me names, I’ll kick their asses,” Billy growled.

“Billy, _no,_” Steve said firmly.

“You can’t kick the whole school’s ass,” Max deadpanned.

“Watch me.”

“_Billy._”

Hopper turned away as Robin rolled her eyes, Steve giving Billy a long-suffering look as he pointed out that he was now an adult and it was generally frowned upon when an eighteen-year-old high school graduate goes around intimidating freshmen. Hopper felt confident enough that Billy wasn’t being entirely serious not to intervene at this stage without compromising his integrity to the badge. He turned to where Joyce had finally gotten around to fussing over her eldest son while Nancy was unashamedly explaining to her that he’d taken one hell of a hit to the face.

“You should have told us last night-”

“Mom, seriously, it’s _fine-_”

“It’s _not _fine, Jonathan, you could have a concussion-”

“There were more important things going on last night-”

“That doesn’t mean that _this _isn’t important-”

“Mom, I’m _fine-_”

“You could have passed out in your sleep, Jonathan-”

_“Chief? Chief, do you copy?”_

The blare from the radio silenced everyone in the room. Billy’s desire to destroy the population of Hawkins High and Joyce’s unstoppable mothering were forgotten in the face of voice that exploded out of the few radios that were turned on. Sam Owens’ voice filled the room as Dustin scrambled for his radio, passing it over to Hopper.

“Yeah, what is it, Doc?”

_“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”_

Hopper glanced around the room as a heavy weight of trepidation settled in the pit of his stomach.

“I really don’t like the sound of that, Doc.”

_“Good news first then, huh?” _Owens’ voice gave a small chuckle that was not shared by Hopper – or indeed anyone else in the room. _“Well, the good news is that you can tell Mr Hargrove that the United States military has reviewed the threat that the military base in Kamchatka poses and has authorised an airstrike against it if we can get the coordinates.”_

Billy tilted his head, his mouth twisting into a grim smile. He wasn’t alone in his relief – several of the others broke into smiles at the words, but Hopper exchanged a dark look with Joyce.

“What’s the bad news, Doc?”

The smile dropped from the kids’ faces as they heard Owens draw in a breath with a hiss.

_“Which bit?”_

Hopper’s stomach plummeted. “You’re not making it sound any better, Doc.”

_“Well,” _Owens said, his voice laden with discomfort. _“Part of the reason they’re so keen to rain fire down with the full weight of Uncle Sam’s military is that they think the Soviets have recreated Brenner’s experiment…”_

Hopper’s head fell back against the wall –

_“…or gotten hold of it.”_

Hopper’s eyes widened a fraction as he looked down at the radio in his hand at the implication of his words. His grip tightened around the plastic – a thumping started echoing in his ears, every beat of his heart magnified as his hands started shaking.

“No,” Hopper growled, as though saying it would make it untrue.

_“Jim, I know-”_

“No,” he repeated – his muscles felt tight, anger shaking every fibre of his being. _They couldn’t – they couldn’t –_

_“Jim,” _Owens said sombrely. _“I think we need to rethink a few things, particularly in light of this-”_

“No shit, Doc,” Hopper growled. “Sam, they _can’t._”

_“I know,”_ Owens sounded sympathetic. _“But the Gate can’t stay open. Whatever hellfire we can rain down on Hawkins Lab doesn’t change the fact that the machine is on the other side of the Gate. Someone needs to go and close it. But…”_

The unspoken words were left dangling in the air. Hopper found himself looking over at Steve and Billy. Steve’s face was turned towards the ground, a knowing resignation sitting on his shoulders, while Billy’s eyes were fixed on Hopper, as though willing him to prove him wrong, to tell him that the latest development did not mean what he thought it meant.

If they used El, if they offered her the protection that she would need, they opened her up to the threat that the government posed to her. Anyone Owens assigned to protect her would _know _who she was – what she was truly capable of. They revealed the threat that she could pose if found by the wrong people. Even now, after she’d _finally _found a chance at a normal life – _she was in high school, for God’s sake, high school! _– the government would take that away from her. She’d be locked up again – or worse. The ultimate final solution to the threat she posed, particularly if the government saw her powers as something too dangerous to use.

But without her, whoever closed the Gate would end up trapped in the Upside Down.

_“I’m sorry, Jim,”_ Owens’ voice broke through his thoughts as Hopper’s eyes fell shut. He pushed the radio away from him, shutting out any further noise from Owens.

_Three words. That was all he had to offer. Three words that wouldn’t change a thing._

A gentle hand touched his arm and he found himself looking up at El. Her large eyes were shining with concern as he looked at this extraordinary child – this wonderful, extraordinary child that by some strange twist of luck and fate had come into his care, this child who never ceased to surprise him with powers beyond his imagination.

His mind drifted back to when he’d found out that El and Max had been opening up Gates in the woods – how panic had pulled him taut, something in his snapping from stress – from grief – anger exploding out of him as he found his hand forced.

_He’d stumbled through the door at about five in the morning, counting his blessings that El was at a sleepover until he found her sat on the couch, face shining with tears. He instantly wondered what had happened – _

_“W– what’s wrong?” he asked as she looked up at him._

_She drew in a shuddering breath as tears rolled down her face._

_“M-Mike… he hates me…”_

_That floored Hopper. He found himself half-set to grab his gun and drive down to Mike Wheeler’s house, to drag him out of bed for whatever he’d done, to put the fear of God in him because whatever had happened, _nobody _hurt El like this –_

_“I messed up,” El sniffed. “I messed up. I was stupid.”_

_Perhaps he hadn’t been up all night, he might have been more perceptive to the guilt that was swirling in her eyes, the fear that hung in her every word as she found herself babbling._

_“I messed up – I just wanted to help – I just wanted to help Max – I could do it – I knew I could do it – it was the only way-”_

_Hopper rubbed his eyes, frowning. “You’re not making a lot of sense here-”_

_“I opened a Gate,” she finally choked out._

_Hopper’s stomach dropped as he felt a wave of cold wash over him, chilling his very bones._

_“What?” he asked in a voice very unlike his own._

_“I opened a Gate – in the woods – for – for Billy,” she stammered out._

_Hopper felt his jaw clench. Words failed him as something rose in his chest – his shoulders were rising and falling with his breaths – a storm was building inside him – an inferno –_

_“What… were you _thinking?_” he ground out._

_It wasn’t a yell – a low quiet growl – a rumble of thunder that preluded the incoming hurricane –_

_“I just wanted to help Max-”_

_“And what about everyone _else?_” he was yelling now. “How could you be so stupid?”_

_“It was the only way-”_

_“You _know _how dangerous this is!” he roared. “You know what we’ve lost – what we’ve had to give up-”_

_And again, the nightmare of the blue figure standing on the causeway with resignation in his eyes flashed through his mind – the image of Bob Newby with one of those _things _on top of him, tearing through his chest – the sight of Will Byers, that tentacle down his throat as Joyce Byers screamed for him –_

_“Nobody’s helping Max,” El sobbed. “I just wanted to help. Billy needs to come _home-_”_

_“Billy Hargrove is _gone!_” Hopper roared, sending El’s eyes wide open as she pressed herself back against the couch cushions. “That thing has taken him, and we can’t afford the risk of bringing it back! Or else everything we’ve given up – everything we’ve lost – is all for nothing-”_

_“He could still be in there-”_

_Hopper’s eyes fell shut as he tilted his head back as he ran a hand over his face._

_“People have _died_ to keep you safe,” the volume dropped from his voice but if anything, the intensity only grew. “_Steve Harrington _died to keep you safe. He _knew_ what he was doing, he _knew_ what was at stake and he told me to save _you. _And you – you’re out running off with Max treating that sacrifice like it’s _nothing – _opening yourself up to that thing that would see you dead-”_

_“It was the only way-”_

_“THEN THERE _IS _NO WAY!”_

_A ringing silence fell between them as Hopper found himself looking at El’s tear-stained face. The only thing breaking the silence were her barely stifled sobs and Hopper’s shaking breaths, unsteady as the worst of the rage fell from his body._

_“I’m sorry,” she finally choked out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”_

_Hopper swallowed as he felt himself breathe. “I know.” _

_The words fell from his lips as little more than a whisper on the air. El looked at him with the tiniest flicker of hope in her eyes, as though he might tell her that everything was going to be okay, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to._

_“You’re grounded,” he muttered quietly. “For a month. No TV, no friends. And afterwards… I don’t want you spending time with Max.”_

The memory of the conversation wouldn’t escape his mind as he found himself pulling El into his arms, closing his eyes against the sight of Steve’s defeated resignation.

“Well, that’s it then,” Steve muttered.

“Steve,” Robin began –

“It’s okay, Robin,” Steve tried for a smile, but it just ended up looking strained. “The Russians can’t find El, and the government can’t protect her. Owens is right, the Gate can’t stay open-”

“There’s _got _to be a way,” Dustin snapped vehemently. “There’s got to be a way-”

“_Dustin_,” Steve said gently. “It’s okay.”

“I can fight,” El pulled away from Hopper –

“I know,” Hopper breathed. “But I need you to be _safe-_”

“_You _need to be safe,” El pointed out as she looked between Hopper, Steve and Billy. “_You _need to come home-”

“El,” Steve breathed, succeeding in a tiny smile on his second attempt. “This is bigger than just the people in this room.”

“But if we can’t use El, that means we can’t kill the Mind Flayer,” Lucas pointed out. “This whole thing was meant to be about _killing _the Mind Flayer – ending it for good – making sure it doesn’t come back so that this _whole thing _would be over!”

“If we don’t kill the Mind Flayer, then it’ll just come back,” Mike continued. “It _always _comes back – it’ll come back for El, it’ll come back for us-”

“Which is why we can’t take risks with El’s life,” Steve explained. “Closing the Gates will be enough for now. We deal with that now, we deal with the Russian threat, and then _maybe _somewhere down the line, you can deal with the Mind Flayer.”

Nobody missed the lack of inclusion of himself in that. El turned around to face him, tears shining in her eyes.

“We could come back after the Russians are gone,” Lucas suggested, his eyes focused on Max. Go back when the place is deserted-”

“We don’t know how long that will take,” Billy said, his voice little more than a throaty whisper. “By the time the coast is clear on this side…”

The unspoken words hung in the air.

“We could open a Gate up somewhere else,” Jonathan suggested. “Somewhere further away from the Lab-”

“That’s not going to work,” Billy said gently. “It was always really, _really _obvious when the Gate opened up in the Other Side Up. And the Russians have an army – a pretty well-equipped army on both sides of the Gate. If we open up a Gate somewhere else, it might buy us… ten minutes, tops.”

“I can do it,” she implored. “I can’t leave you there – not again.”

Steve’s smile widened, the sadness in his eyes intensifying. “All we need to do was protect you,” Steve muttered. “So you can protect everyone else.”

Hopper’s eyes travelled past El who looked just as heartbroken as everyone else as she stared at Steve. Eyes flickered between Steve, Billy and Hopper as nobody dared to ask the question of _who would come home. _Max folded herself against Billy, burying her face in his shoulder as she clung on for dear life. Robin looked resigned, her eyes closed against the reality as she turned away from Steve. The sickening reality seemed to settle on them all, the knowledge that two of them were not going to come back and the question remaining as to which one would had turned all three of them into losses to be mourned, like they were Schrödinger’s corpses.

Hopper’s eyes found Joyce’s as El finally turned back to him, falling back into his embrace. Joyce was looking at Hopper, a steely determination in her gaze as it locked onto him. There was a sadness there, a sense of melancholy as she gave him the tiniest nod before leaning forward to pull both her sons into her arms.

-:-

Paul stood in front of the phone. His fingers balanced on the dial, his mind torn between running circles around the Department of Energy’s switchboard _again, _despite the fact that he’d been disconnected from them five minutes ago, or to call Linda. In the twenty or so hours since he’d flown out the door in a panic, he had barely given a passing thought to her, at home _again_ with very little else to do. It was easy to forget that she’d _also _found herself giving up her career and working life in the aftermath of Starcourt.

Sam Owens was an extremely hard man to reach.

Paul had discovered this in his first attempt to get a hold of him. It had taken him weeks of spending every spare second calling the Department of Energy, collating a series of numbers for direct lines that brought him closer and closer to the office he’d needed. Invariably, if it was the _wrong _number, he’d find himself put back through to the switchboard before ultimately getting disconnected. It had been an extremely frustrating process, and one he seemed doomed to repeat, given that Sam Owens was _not _in his normal office, and nobody seemed to have any idea where he _was._

The last call had, however, yielded one tiny nugget of information. The woman had let slip that the last the Department of Energy had heard, Owens was in Hawkins. She had become very cagey when Paul had tried to press her for any further information, such as _when that was. _She had simply responded with phrases such as _‘I can’t tell you that, sir,’ _and _‘I will let him know you called’_. It had then ended with the switchboard threatening to have him charged with harassment, to which Paul had responded that legally, the police had the right to contact people as much as they liked if it was deemed pertinent to an active case, and given that in the absence of the Chief of Police, he was the de facto leader of the Department as the Mayor, and that he was calling on police business. Most of it was completely untrue, but he’d said it with enough authority and official legal jargon that the woman on the other end of the line had sighed and dropped the matter along with the call.

_Hawkins. Sam Owens was in Hawkins. Sam Owens was missing in Hawkins, along with Jim Hopper, Joyce Byers, and nine children._

Paul _wished _that he was surprised, but rather felt a feeling of resigned nausea. He’d known that Jim Hopper was linked to Sam Owens and the Department of Energy, he’d _known _that what they were up to started with _that Lab, _but their final lead was missing – gone along with everything else. The FBI agents were busy trying to work out who, exactly, Frederic Bateman and Harrison Kent _really _were, given that the IDs were apparently incredibly good fakes, the likes of which McBride had struggled to contain his surprise at discovering. Paul had told them to call with any news, but so far all the had discovered was that, like the other four bodies found at the scene, they were ghosts.

Paul ran a hand through his hair as he made up his mind, picking up the phone and dialling the number. He listened to it ring once – twice –

_“Hello?”_

He winced at the nervousness in Linda’s voice. In and amongst everything that had happened, it had completely slipped his mind that he’d left her _alone _in the house that she probably felt desperately unsafe in. It had been two days – _two days _since she’d walked in on two criminals breaking in. He closed his eyes, feeling his stomach twist uncomfortably with regret.

“Linda,” he muttered. “It’s – it’s Paul.”

_“Paul? What’s going on – where are you – I tried calling your office, but someone said you were dealing with something at the police station – I’ve been hearing rumours – what’s happening?”_

He felt a stab of guilt at her babbling. Of course she was scared, _of course _she’d heard what was going on. Locked inside the bubble of the police station, he hadn’t given a thought to what the outside world would make of the previous night’s events, but _of course _it would be the case. A family, a police chief, his – _daughter – _Paul hadn’t given much thought to the relationship there – and six other children couldn’t all go missing in a town like Hawkins and expect it _not _to be headline news.

“Linda – I’m really sorry I left you alone last night – I…”

He ran a hand over his face as he swallowed.

“We were right, Linda,” he finally choked out, his voice throaty. “About Hopper, about the Department of Energy, it’s all-”

He broke off, looking up at the ceiling as he took a deep breath.

“I’m… I’m really sorry, I’m not going to make it home tonight,” he breathed. “I’ll – I’ll explain everything when all this is over…”

He heard her draw in a shaky breath.

_“Paul, please come home,” _she muttered, her voice tiny, _“Please. I don’t feel safe here on my own while all this is going on – those men are still out there-”_

“I know,” he breathed. “I know, and I’ll come home as soon as I can. I just need to – I need to look into something first. I need to see something for myself.”

_“Will you come home after?”_

He found himself nodding in spite of the fact that she couldn’t see it.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Straight after.”

_“Okay,” _she muttered, sounding resigned. _“Just… be careful, okay? I can’t…”_

She left the sentence in the air, clearly too scared to voice it. Once again, Paul found himself nodding.

“I will be,” he muttered. “Don’t worry.”

It took more physical effort than Paul would have thought possible to hang up the phone. He found himself needing to physically force the breath in his lungs to leave his body before he picked up his coat and headed for the car.

He would see for himself what was happening at that Lab. He would not be shut out again.

-:-

Steve found himself stepping out into the darkening sky to catch a minute of air away from the oppressive atmosphere that had settled in the storm cellar. The way Dustin had been looking at him since Owens had made contact was threatening to undo his last thread of resolve.

Max had been the first to break. It had taken all of about ten minutes of sitting in shellshocked silence to get there, breaking the painfully uncomfortable silence.

_“It’s not fair,” she’d breathed, her voice rising to a shout. “It’s not fair. We just_ _got you back. We _just _got you back. There has to be another way – someone else – _anyone _else-”_

_“Max,” Billy had muttered. “We’re the only ones who know what’s on the other side. It’s got to be us.”_

_“Well – then – why not some soldiers or something – can’t Owens send _them?_”_

_“Max, you know we can’t ask anyone else to do this,” Steve had muttered sadly._

_“No,” she’d flatly denied. “No. Why – why does it always have to be _us? _Why are _we _the ones who have to sacrifice everything?”_

_Steve had felt his heart drop at those words. His eyes had fallen shut and he’d looked down at the floor, taking a deep breath before looking at her._

_“Because I’m the one who screwed up,” he’d explained. “I’m the one who led the Russians here. I’m the one who told them about El and all of you. It’s got to be me.”_

_She’d stood up at that, glaring at him with a fire in her eyes that Steve was too familiar with, but had never been that strong before._

_“No,” she’d snarled. “No. No – don’t you dare – you can’t – you can’t do this – it’s not fair – it’s not fair – IT’S NOT FAIR!”_

_Billy had found himself wrapping his arms around her, pulling her against his chest as her muffled screams against his shoulder echoed around the room. He’d held her still, two pillars in the centre of the otherwise seated storm cellar, holding her still with whispered consoling words only truly audible to her, the rest of the occupants stunned that Billy Hargrove was capable of being that comforting. He’d taken her outside not long afterwards, before she had returned alone, eyes red and refusing to look at anyone._

There had been no sign of Billy since.

Steve walked over to the crest of the hill, seeing Billy seated in the same spot that they’d been lying earlier, sharing a cigarette and attempting to blow smoke rings. Billy wasn’t lying down, but rather sitting hunched over as he looked out over the hill and the stream. The sun had dipped behind the horizon, leaving only the fading twilight.

“Hey,” Steve announced his presence as he came and sat down beside him. “You okay?”

“Not really,” Billy deadpanned as he looked out over the hill. “You?”

Steve shrugged. “About the same.”

The silence between them stretched as the sky reached a deep royal blue. Steve looked up to see the first stars appear in the sky.

“Max isn’t talking to anyone inside,” Steve said.

Billy’s eyes fell to the floor. “Yeah, she’s not talking to me, either.”

Steve looked over at him questioningly, but Billy didn’t look up.

“I told her not to come looking for me,” Billy explained. There was a soft crack in his voice that he forced his way past, not meeting Steve’s eyes.

“Billy-”

“There isn’t a version of this where I come home, Steve,” Billy finally locked eyes with him, the blue eyes shining with tears hidden behind the softest glare Steve had ever seen on his face, every line showing pain rather than anger. “If I come home, that means _you _stay. And I’m not leaving you – I’ve told you _so many times_ – I’m not leaving you. Not there.”

Steve’s eyes fell closed as a sigh fell from his lips. “Billy, _please-_”

“Steve, if _anyone _deserves to come home at the end of this, it’s _you,_” Billy breathed. “Those kids _need _you. The Chief was right – they can’t lose you again.”

“Billy,” Steve breathed. “I can’t do this without you. I can’t come _home _without you. You say you can’t leave me – well, I can’t leave _you, _either. It goes both ways. I don’t know what I’d do without you – I can’t do this on my own. I can’t go _back _to being on my own.”

Billy’s eyes fell closed again as he looked at the floor. He managed a tiny smile that only pulled up the corner of his lips. “You won’t leave me, and I won’t leave you,” he muttered. “Looks like the Chief’s the lucky one.”

Steve ended up mimicking his pose. “Looks like we’re together until the end.”

Billy’s fingers interlocked with Steve’s, tightly grasping his hand. “Together until the end,” he echoed.

Steve shuffled closer to Billy, the pair leaning into each other as Steve rested his head on Billy’s shoulder, Billy’s own head resting on top of his.

“Max is right,” Steve breathed. “It really _isn’t _fair.”

Billy sighed. “No,” he muttered. “But fairness hasn’t ever really come into it, has it? And like I told Max, if this isn’t going to be the end of it all just yet, there’s no sense in her risking everything for me like she did before.”

Steve tilted his head slightly to look at Billy. “You took that better than I thought you would,” he muttered. “I thought you’d hate everyone in there for leaving you.”

Billy didn’t answer immediately, looking out into the deepening night.

“A while ago, I might have,” he finally said. “I never told you – it never _let _me tell you – but… I was only ever angry at _Max. _All I knew was that she’d sent me to that godforsaken hellscape and trapped me there and left me there to _die. _I didn’t know _why, _I thought she hated me for what I’d done. It didn’t matter that the others were involved – I told you before, I don’t owe shit to them and they never owed shit to me – but _Max… _she was always the one who was meant to be _family. _That was supposed to _mean _something. So it hurt. I thought she’d abandoned me, and when I saw my name on that goddamn memorial, it seemed like she’d just… _left _me. So to find out that she’d _really _been fighting all this time to bring me home – to do _whatever it took _to get me home – it was… It really _did _mean something. _I _meant something. She put me in there to save my _life _– she spent all this time trying to find a way to bring me _home-_”

He broke off, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

“I never told you this, but I made it to the Gate,” Billy said softly. “That day – when you found out – I _made _it. I saw her there – I saw she’d been trying to save me – but that _thing_ was still in control. Too much so. Supergirl ended up throwing me back and closing the Gate before it could do anything. But I _saw _her, Steve. I saw her standing there – I could have _touched _her – she was there, she was _looking _for me.”

Steve pulled his head off Billy’s shoulder, frowning at him slightly. “Why didn’t you _tell _me?”

“I don’t know,” Billy muttered. “I’m sorry, I should have, but I didn’t – I didn’t know _how._”

Steve looked down at the floor before leaning into Billy’s side again, squeezing his hand. “I guess it doesn’t matter now,” he muttered.

The silence stretched, the moon at last beginning to rise in the sky, bathing them in a cool, white light.

“You should go inside,” Steve muttered eventually. “Since we – you know – have _quite literally_ got the rest of our lives together, you should probably spend some time with Max.”

Billy nodded, but he didn’t immediately move. He leant slightly more into Steve’s side, his eyes wide as they reflected the moonlight. Steve glanced over at him and saw the faintest trace of tear tracks on Billy’s face. Steve didn’t say anything, instead squeezing his hand tightly for a moment before untangling their fingers.

“Go on,” Steve said softly, giving him a small smile. “She needs you.”

Billy finally hummed in assent as he pulled himself to his feet. “You coming?”

Steve gave a small nod and a smile. “Yeah, in just a sec, I kind of… well, I need to…”

He left it unsaid as Billy gave a half-hearted roll of his eyes, sighing before disappearing over the crest of the hill and into the storm cellar. Steve sat there for a moment longer, just taking in the moon hanging above him.

_Just one last time._

He dragged himself to his feet eventually. It took more effort than he thought possible as he picked his way to the top of the hill and through the trees to a spot where the storm cellar was in sight but far enough away that if anyone came out, they wouldn’t _immediately _see what he was doing –

_Something moved in the trees._

Steve pressed himself flat against the tree in front of him, holding his breath as he stayed very still. He slowly peered around the side of the tree, peering into the darkness at the shadow he’d seen mere moments ago.

_There it was again!_

The silhouette of a man moving in the trees alone – it was about thirty or forty feet away – Steve couldn’t tell in the waning light – the silhouette caught the light of the moon –

Steve ducked behind the tree as the figure turned towards him. He held his breath, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn’t tell if the figure had seen him –

A soft growl sounded in the distance – inhuman, unnatural, otherworldly –

Against all instincts, Steve found himself turning his head slightly, moving as little as possible from his spot behind the tree as he tilted his head to get a proper look –

The silhouette was still standing there, turned sideways – Steve watched it for a second, taking in its unnaturally long arms at last – the way its face fluttered open –

A bucket of cold ice emptied itself into his stomach at the chilling realisation that it wasn’t a _man _he was looking at.

He pressed himself back against the tree trunk, taking a deep breath as he judged the distance between the tree and the storm cellar. It wasn’t more than ten feet or so – he could make it if it was looking away – but it would hear the door close behind him – _it would find them –_

It already _had._

He cast a single cautious glance around the tree – _it was still turned away _– he slipped through the trees as quickly as he could – he pulled up the door as quietly as he could –

He glanced sideways – the silhouette turned towards the light that streamed out of the door –

He yanked the door shut and fumbled with the lock behind him – _it wouldn’t hold for long –_

“Steve?” Billy’s voice sounded alarmed _and infinitely too loud for Steve’s liking_. “Steve? What’s happened? What’s going on?”

“We’ve been found,” Steve breathed. “There’s a – there’s a _Demogorgon _out there.”

Alarm crossed the sea of assembled faces. Flashes of the terrifying chase from the Byers’ house were clearly far too prevalent in everyone’s minds.

Billy was the first to recover.

“How many?” Billy asked, his tone all business.

“At the moment?” Steve tilted his head. “One. But it’ll have friends not too far away.”

“Any chance it didn’t see you and will just go right on with its business?” Robin asked hopefully but not expectantly.

Steve gave a wry smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

“Given that we _are _its business, I’d say no.”

A strange light suddenly came into Billy’s eyes.

“Steve,” he muttered. “You still got your little gift from the Russians?”

Steve frowned, drawing a blank. “My _what?_”

Billy gave him a withering look as he went over to his own backpack, rummaging around inside. He finally found what he was looking for.

“If there’s only one, it might be time to use _this_,” Billy announced, drawing out a large black gun-shaped weapon –

_The taser._

A wave of relief flooded Steve’s body.

“I’ve only got one charge,” Billy muttered. “You still got yours?”

Steve bent down and started to search in his bag, feeling around for the tell-tale metal.

“I know it was in here somewhere…”

“Sorry,” Hopper hissed, eyeing the weapon in Billy’s hands with a certain amount of trepidation. “What the hell _is _that?”

“A little failsafe given to us by the Russians,” Billy explained, his eyes fixed on the door above him. “Problem is, they only gave us one charge each so if there’s any chance of _another _one coming and joining, _now might be a good time to get it out, Steve._”

Only sheer adrenaline could have made Steve ignore that, not even bothering with an eyeroll or even to take it personally. His hands found the metal buried at the bottom of his backpack, pulling out the weapon and arming it.

“I’ll shoot first,” Billy muttered to him. “If that fails-”

“My turn,” Steve finished before turning to the rest of the room. “The rest of you, get ready to _run._”

They fell silent for a moment, the weight of the situation pressing down on them. Steve didn’t dare to breathe, _waiting…_

“How the hell did it find us?” Mike whispered.

Steve tilted his head. “Well, at least _one _of them has been running around Hawkins hunting us for the last four days, it was probably only a matter of-”

“_Shh!_” Billy hissed.

A soft, clicking growl sounded above them. Steve was _certain _it could hear its heartbeat –

_BANG!_

It was on the other side of the door – Steve’s heart leapt into his throat –

The sound of claws swiping against metal sounded above them. Steve glimpsed Hopper forcing himself to his feet in his periphery, coming up beside him, gun drawn, Nancy and Robin finding their own weapons –

The squealing sound of tearing metal sent Steve’s heart into his throat. He jolted back as he looked up, claws breaking through the rusty door – he heard Billy’s breath catch in his throat – he was looking for a clear shot – _there wasn’t one – not yet –_

Through the tears in the metal, Steve saw the Demogorgon swipe again at the door –

The sound of metal breaking apart grated at his ears as the Demogorgon’s claw caught the lock. It yanked it back like it was nothing, the rusted metal putting up all the resistance of paper as it was torn back – the door swung open –

The head torn straight from Steve’s nightmares opened up into a terrifying flower, rows upon rows of teeth on full display as a soul-shredding scream filled the storm cellar –

A white light erupted next to Steve – he found himself slamming his eyes shut as the scream intensified – the white light was burning through his eyelids as he turned away – the smell of burning flesh filled the air – the Demogorgon’s scream was getting louder, a desperately pained noise –

The light stopped suddenly. Steve glimpsed through the barest crack in his eyelids something come tumbling down the steps – he jumped out of the way, a hand thrown out to push back Robin –

The room was at last still. Steve opened his eyes to see the corpse of the Demogorgon lying across the bottom of the stairs like a marionette with its strings cut. Billy was pressed against the wall on the opposite side of its head, the flaps of teeth lying inelegantly, flopped over the creature’s head with none of the fierce rigidity that it held in its scream, every muscle slack in death. The room was otherwise silent, every eye fixed on either the Demogorgon or Billy, the taser falling from his hand.

A far-off scream in the woods jolted Steve back into himself.

“We need to go,” he said, glancing up through the trapdoor, his face bathed in the moonlight that shone down into the room. “Grab whatever you need and get to the cars – _now._”

His words were all it took to spark the room into action. He bent down and slung the backpack over his shoulder before grabbing the flamethrower. Billy kicked the Demogorgon’s corpse away from him as he clambered out from behind it, handing Steve a gun. Steve slipped it into his holster before bounding up the stairs two at a time, stepping out into the moonlight and crouching low to the ground.

“Any sign?” Billy hissed.

Steve peered out into the darkness – there were no clear shadows moving amongst the trees –

Another howling scream sounded in the forest – _there wasn’t time –_

“Let’s go,” he hissed. “We’ve got a chance, but we’ve got to go _now._”

Billy nodded, sprinting up the stairs after him and crouching beside him.

“Can you see anything?” Steve asked.

“No,” Billy breathed back.

“Go,” Steve whispered. “Lead the others back to the cars. I’ll make sure nobody gets left behind.”

Billy nodded once, and Steve felt more than a little relief that Billy wasn’t arguing. He turned and ushered the others out of the storm cellar before pushing himself away from Steve. Steve stayed frozen, his eyes peering through the trees – _was it just his imagination, or was the darkness moving?_

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and Steve jumped, his eyes landing on Hopper.

“Come on, kid,” he breathed at Steve –

Steve turned back towards the trees as he pushed himself to his feet – another scream sounded in the darkness –_ something was definitely moving in the darkness –_

He started to sprint after the others. Heart racing in his chest, he forced his legs after Billy – he could see Hopper struggling slightly, forcing himself to keep going through the pain in his side – they couldn’t afford to slow down – _but they couldn’t afford to tire themselves out_ – even at a run, it would take some fifteen minutes to get back to the cars – Billy and Steve could manage that, but Hopper was hurt, Jonathan, Nancy and Robin were never the most athletic, and the kids were generally more into _pretending _to run long distances in their game than _actually _running –

He could only hope adrenaline would see them through.

They tore through the trees, Billy picking the most efficient way he could think of. Weeks of wandering the nightmarish parallel of the woods in the Upside Down gave them some advantage – the darkness was providing all the cover they needed – a fire was burning in Steve’s chest as he forced his legs to cooperate –

A roar sounded behind them – _closer _– _those things were getting closer –_

Billy seemed to have heard it, too – he picked up the pace, forgoing the last vestiges of stealth that he held onto as he tore through the trees – Will stumbled on a tree root, Jonathan only stopping for a moment to catch him before he ended up face-down in the dirt – he was back on his feet, shooting a glance behind him as he started sprinting after Billy – his eyes widened –

Steve threw a look over his shoulder and found his heart pushing the maximum heart rate it could reach. Visible now among the trees were silhouettes of at least ten figures – maybe more – _certainly more than he could count_ – taller than men, long arms ending in talons capable of shredding metal and concrete – _Steve had seen them do it _– Steve felt his heart race as he pushed himself, shoving at the backs of the others – he felt himself shout something – he didn’t know what – he just needed them to _move _– _move – they couldn’t fight – they needed to MOVE –_

_The cars couldn’t be _that _much further –_

Steve turned back around as he tore through the trees – he could make out most of the others up ahead – _he couldn’t see Billy –_

He felt a staggering wave of relief as the shadow of a cabin came into view – the answer to where Billy had vanished to came at the sound of a car door opening – _he must have run ahead –_

“Come _on!_” Steve heard Billy shout into the night.

He found himself pushing himself, some last vestige of adrenaline forcing him forwards as he found himself half-shoving Dustin towards the cars –

_Another roar sounded behind him –_

He all but flung Dustin at the car as he swung himself into the passenger seat next to Billy, the backpack and flamethrower being tossed over the console towards Max. He glanced out of the windscreen to see the others bundling into cars – Joyce was fumbling with the engine in Hopper’s Cruiser, Lucas’ face visible in one of the back windows next to Robin –

The cars burst into life, one after the other. Billy was not gentle about swinging it down the dirt track and back towards the road. He pulled it out onto the asphalt and Steve could practically _feel _the relish Billy held as he pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

“Tell Byers to try and keep up this time,” Billy said at Dustin in the back seat, unable to keep a certain amount of glee out of his voice at the relief of being in the car. Billy floored the accelerator, relishing the turns just as he had done the previous night as he finally began to put some semblance of distance between them and what was on their tail.

Steve found himself shaking his head at Billy, the adrenaline easing up just enough to allow a ghost of exasperation penetrate his mind at Billy finding some semblance of _enjoyment _in this. It was fair to say that he was _also _finding some comfort from being in the car, Billy at the wheel with all the recklessness that had saved Steve’s life so many times before, that unstoppable energy from the unwavering belief that _he _was unstoppable –

The relief came crashing to a halt as they rounded a corner and saw, some way down the road, a blockade of cars that suddenly lit up with flashing blue lights.

-:-

The road Paul was driving on was dark, no streetlights to be seen. It was a long, winding road that would eventually fork and wind its way down towards Hawkins Lab. The only light came from his headlights, illuminating the space in front of his car, dancing off tree trunks and asphalt.

Paul didn’t know what he was hoping to find at Hawkins Lab. He didn’t know whether there would be any indication of Owens, whether there would be any indication of anything _at all _– by all accounts, Hawkins Lab had shut down over a year ago. But he was _tired _of dancing around the fringes of this – he was _tired _of being shut out – he was _tired _of waiting for other people to tell him the truth. He understood what was happening better than any of the cops in the Department – he _certainly _understood what was happening better than those arrogant Feds. He needed to see for himself – he needed to start _looking _for himself. That was what had gotten him answers – that was what had _always _yielded answers for him –

Suddenly, he caught sight of a light in the rearview mirror – blue lights flashed above a car.

Reluctantly, he pulled over, closing his eyes as he waited for the cars to draw up alongside him. It wouldn’t take more than a few moments to clear up whatever was going on – his name and face still had some pull, particularly with the police at the moment – but he resented any delay – _not now – not while there was so much at stake…_

The police car suddenly shot past him in a blaze of sirens, all but ignoring his presence. It was followed by a second car, both cars flouting any semblance of the speed limit.

His blood suddenly ran cold as he remembered what _else _was along this road – there was a fork in the road – one road led down towards Hawkins Lab, but the _other_ led to –

_Hopper’s cabin. The roadblock. _

_Something must have happened at the roadblock._

He didn’t notice himself start to shake as his hands tightened on the steering wheel. He pushed the car back onto the road, unaware of making a conscious decision to follow the police cars racing up the road.

He would see this for himself.

He would not be shut out.

-:-

“Billy, pull over,” Steve could feel the tension in every particle of his body.

“_What?_”

“Billy, I’m _telling _you, _pull over!_”

“What – so we can be torn apart by those _things?_”

“What do _you _want to do – go driving at the fucking _roadblock?_”

“If that’s what it takes-”

“Billy, you’ll _kill us!_ It’ll wreck the car-”

_“Are you boys seeing this?”_

Hopper’s voice out of Dustin’s radio alarmed everyone, the frayed edges of Steve’s final nerve set alight.

_“Pull over,” _Hopper instructed, his voice tense. _“I don’t know what’s going on, but I think we need to run for it. Pull over and go straight through the trees. And Steve – Billy – put those goddamn hoods up.”_

Billy gave the tiniest shake of his head as the relief they’d all felt a moment ago at getting in the cars finally vanished. With gritted teeth, he swung the car sideways against the side of the road as he pulled up the mask and hood. Steve did the same as he leapt out of the car, ushering out Dustin and Max as Hopper brought his car up next to the black four-by-four. Jonathan’s car came up right behind and the three cars at last emptied, Billy and Max leading the way into the woods –

Before they were brought up short by flashlights and guns in their faces.

They backed up a fraction as Steve took in the sight around him. Police officers emerged from all sides to surround them – Steve involuntarily found himself drawing closer to the others as he found himself caged in a ring of guns – lights – _soldiers –_

A glance at Billy, their eyes meeting, told them that Billy was feeling exactly the same way.

A car from the roadblock pulled up beside the three cars that they’d abandoned, and Powell stepped out. Hopper turned around, taking in the sight of Powell giving him a cold look.

“Cal, what’s going on?” Hopper asked gruffly.

“I was kind of hoping you’d tell _us _that, Chief,” Powell was keeping his voice steady, but a vein of anger ran through it – not just anger – there was something else – _something deeper –_

“What the hell is this?” Hopper growled. “You _arresting _us or something?”

Powell’s glare deepened.

“Something like that,” a new voice announced. Hopper wheeled around to see Callahan to the right of Powell, glaring at him with that same hurt in his eyes.

_Betrayal._

“What the hell are the goddamn charges?”

“Try kidnapping,” Powell’s voice remained steady. “Add a couple of murder charges on top of that-”

“_What?_” Hopper’s voice was incredulous.

“You want to explain why you’ve got six other children with you who went missing from Joyce Byers’ house, leaving behind a murder scene?”

Hopper’s face paled as the blood drained out of it.

“Whatever you think you know, you’ve got it _wrong,_” Hopper said, his voice throaty. “I did what I needed to do to _protect _them-”

“Then why the _fuck _didn’t you read us in on it, Chief?” Powell snarled, the first flash of emotion permeating his voice as he glared at Hopper. “If you needed to protect them, we could have helped-”

“Not with this, Cal,” Hopper shook his head. “You’ve – you’ve _got _to let us go-”

“I’ve _got _to take you in, Jim,” Powell said, some semblance of composure regained.

“Powell, I’m telling you-”

He broke off at the sight of the one thing that could make the situation worse. A sleek black Mercedes pulled up behind the police car. Steve recognised it instantly, turning his face away from the new arrival as he felt his eyes close, a nauseating feeling in his stomach.

Paul Harrington stepped out of the Mercedes, taking in the scene before him.

“Well done, Powell,” Paul said softly as he took in the sight of Hopper surrounded on all sides.

“Sir, you really shouldn’t be here-”

“I want to see this for myself,” Paul shut down any further argument, though the look on Powell’s face did not indicate that Powell was satisfied with the result, backing down only out of convenience.

“Paul,” Hopper began –

“_Shut up!_” Paul spat.

Hopper’s eyes flicked towards the treeline. Steve wondered if his heart was going to burst out of his chest – his chest was feeling sickeningly tight – _his dad was here – HERE –_

“I have no words for you, Hopper,” Paul’s voice was low, threatening.

“Paul, you’re making a mistake-”

“A _mistake?_” Paul echoed. “My only _mistake _was letting you stay free. You’ve been working with the Department of Energy to – _what? _Cover up whatever was being done at Hawkins Lab?”

Hopper’s eyes widened slightly.

“Oh,” Paul sneered. “You didn’t realise I knew. Well, I do. You’ve been working with Sam Owens to keep a lid on this, but it’s gotten out of hand. And it stops _now. I’m _ending it _now_.”

“Paul, you don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“I know that you’ve been caught red-handed after abducting six children with Joyce Byers. If _you _think I’m letting you walk away after that, then God help me, you’re stupider than I thought.”

“Paul, for _God’s sake, _let me do my _job-_”

“Your _job?_” Paul repeated incredulously. “Your employment at Hawkins Police Department was terminated this morning at about the same time that a warrant was issued for the arrest of you, Joyce Byers and any accomplices.”

Hopper was rendered speechless as he stood, agape, looking at Paul, his jaw slack with surprise in an expression that did not suit him.

“And of _course, _when I find you, you’re also with those _monsters _who broke into my house,” Paul continued. “Were you _always _working with them? Were they sent by you to – what – _intimidate _me? Go after my _wife?_ Is Owens under one of those hoods?”

Steve drew a shaky breath. He didn’t dare look at his father’s face. His eyes stayed clamped shut, his face pointing towards the ground as he felt a light hit his back, several flashlights pointed at him.

“Paul, _please _let us go,” Hopper breathed, a desperate edge to his voice.

“Why don’t you face me?” Paul spat, ignoring Hopper’s desperate plea, and Steve _knew _he was talking to him. He’d never heard so much venom in his father’s voice. “Why don’t you take off those masks and _face me?_”

Steve couldn’t breathe, his hands held awkwardly in the air. He could feel Billy’s eyes on him. He opened his own and glanced at him from under his hood, refusing to lift his head more than he absolutely had to in order to catch those blue depths, illuminated by the white light of the four or five flashlights on him.

“Turn around at _look _at me, you cowards!” Paul all but roared, a complete loss of any kind of restraint.

Billy gave Steve the tiniest nod.

Steve felt his hands shake as he reached up and pulled down the mask covering his face. He pulled down the hood as he turned around and finally faced his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit, allow me to introduce you to Fan.


	47. Part 4 Chapter 12: Home Is Where The Heart Is

“Steven…”

The word fell from Paul’s lips without his consent, without his awareness. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the ringing in his ears as he stared, jaw slack with shock, at his son.

_It wasn’t possible. He was dead. Paul had seen his body. He had wept against Linda’s head over his body. He was dead. He was gone._

The breath left his body without his knowledge, his stomach clenching as his mind ground to a halt, the gears screeching together in a sickening ringing buzz that echoed in his ears until it was all that remained. He didn’t hear the soft _“holy shit” _muttered by Callahan, variations on a theme echoed around the circle, he didn’t see Callahan lower his gun as the world fell away, blurry darkness all that remained beyond him and Steven.

_In his mind’s eye, Paul could see a boy, no older than five, a mop of dark hair on his head, running from the living room towards him, a name on his lips that hadn’t ever been applied to him by anyone other than this boy, not even letting him get his coat off as he came home for the weekend before throwing his tiny arms around his waist… The same boy, a few years older, curled up on the couch next to his mother, looking at him slightly guiltily as Paul stepped into the living room – and why shouldn’t he be guilty? It was one in the morning, he had school in less than eight hours… The boy a few years older, nervously telling him that he’d made the winning shot in a basketball game that Paul hadn’t even known was happening, that the coach was considering him for captain in his junior year in spite of the fact that team captains were usually seniors… The same boy in a bright blue graduation gown, giving a tentative smile to him in the crowd as though he had something to be proud of, with no grades, no prospects and no future… Paul would come to realise just how true that was…_

Steven’s lips were moving, something falling from his hand into the dirt. He dimly registered him saying something. It might have been an apology – _it should be an apology _– but for what? What apology was _ever _going to make up for this?

_“Dad… Dad, I can explain.”_

Explain? How on earth was Steven going to _explain? What _was he even going to explain? How he’d left – how he’d run away leaving everyone to think he was dead? How he’d let Paul and Linda go through more tragedy and heartbreak than they’d ever known? How he’d let Paul throw away his entire _career? _How he’d left them both alone, severing the last threads of their marriage until they’d found a final connection over mutual anger and betrayal?

_“I’m so sorry – I’m so sorry I left… It wasn’t because I wanted to – I didn’t have a choice – I’ll explain everything…”_

Sorry – sorry – _sorry? _For _leaving? _For having the _chance _to come back – to put an end to the nightmare of the last eight months – but instead, terrifying his own mother out of her mind with a spectre in the house? For staying away – for making them live for _eight months _believing that he was _gone? _To _deal _with that one utterly lifechanging fact when it was all just a _lie? _To try and _hide _the truth from him – to turn away his head and cover his face and refuse to look at him until there was no other possible alternative?

_“But Dad… please – you have to let us go.”_

The words filtered through his mind as his whole body seized up. The words were like a gut-punch – _Steven could not possibly want to leave? Now?_

_“Dad, there’s something we have to do – you have to let us go – please…”_

What on _earth _– after _everything – _Steven could not possibly want to _leave _– as though there was something more important – _anything _more important than what was happening at this very moment – as though _Steven _wasn’t the most important thing to _Paul _– as though Paul hadn’t uprooted his entire life – hadn’t given away the business he’d spent his life building to try and make amends for the _other _thing in his life that _should _have been more important to him – as though there was _anything _that would make amends – as though anything Steven said _right now _would make amends for what he had done to Paul and Linda…

_“Dad, I promise I’ll explain everything later, just not now – it’s important – please, Dad, I’ll come back and explain, I promise…”_

As though Paul could let him go on a _promise_, like he _hadn’t _been lying to Paul for months – as though _Hopper _and _Joyce Byers _hadn’t been lying to him for months – keeping this from him – from _them _– because hadn’t Joyce Byers_ told _Linda that she’d watched Steven die? Hadn’t she _listened _to Linda’s thoughts on whether Steven was alive – hadn’t Linda turned to her as the _last possible resort, _the last person who might _listen _to her, and told her _to her face _that Steven was gone – that she’d _watched _Steven leave this world, letting Linda go through that nightmare that _Joyce _had experienced only to discover the lie a few days later?

_“But Dad, please… _Let us go.”

Go – go – to do _what? What _could he _possibly _need to do? Go – to run away again? To vanish into the night leaving Paul with an empty explanation – to tell Linda that he was alive but _missing – _that he, _Paul, _had chosen to let their son go mere minutes after discovering that he was alive, to go back to pretending that he was dead – pretending for whatever nefarious purpose had him breaking into Melvald’s – terrorising his own mother in her own house – to run away to whatever had caused him to leave in the first place –

Paul had a chance to keep Steven _safe _now.

To get answers.

To take him _home._

_Even if it was against his will._

The silence stretched out between them, a gaping chasm as wide as their gap in understanding. All Paul could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat. Steven was looking at him, his brown eyes shining with something Paul had never seen so blatantly on display before. Stripped back, there was an imploring gaze, tears shining in his eyes – _as though this wasn’t his choice _– a pain there that Paul could not possibly fathom – that Steven could not possibly have any reason to feel – _because no matter how hard this was for him, this was his own choice to leave – to stay away _– he would leave again given half the chance – he had made that abundantly clear – and Paul could not – _would not _– let him leave again.

He would not let him put himself in danger again.

He would not _lose _him again.

_There was nothing else for it._

His eyes never left Steven’s as he finally handed down his judgement.

“Arrest them.”

_“DAD!”_

Steven’s scream tore at Paul’s very soul. It was such a desperate sound, the last semblance of any control held by his son lost in a landslide of panic. He turned away, the ringing in his ears mounting. He caught the barest glimpse of Hopper’s eyes falling shut in sad resignation – no surprise in his face but _disappointment _– _that his last gambit had failed?_ No. It wasn’t that – it was disappointment at _Paul_ – but what _right _did Hopper have to be disappointed in him? How _dare _Hopper judge him – after what he’d done – Hopper _knew _the pain of losing a child – he _knew _better than most what he had put Paul through, and yet he had done it anyway – he had _kept _Steven away from him – whether it had been for all those months or even only for those few moments where he had pleaded with Paul to let them go – it didn’t matter, because Hopper _knew_ the pain, he _knew _what he had done – even depriving Paul of the knowledge that his son was still alive for a _second _longer than he could have done was unforgivable.

_“Dad – please – you have to listen to me – you have to let us go – PLEASE!”_

He noticed the uniformed officers hesitating to move – Powell was looking at him strangely…

“Sir?” Powell asked, as though waiting for confirmation of what Paul had asked.

_“Dad – there’s something we have to do – please-”_

“You have your orders,” Paul’s voice sounded ragged, hoarse, and completely foreign in his mouth as he addressed Powell, ignoring the continued protests of his son – he could barely hear _anything _beyond his voice – the world was still largely blurry in his eyes as he turned away from Steven. “Arrest James Hopper, Joyce Byers and any accomplices they may have.”

The world wasn’t staying still – a wave of nausea was threatening to overtake him – he felt sick to his stomach –

Because how could Steven have _done _that?

_“Dad – please – just _listen _to me!”_ Steven was continuing to scream – _as though he could hear him – _the ringing in his ears was getting louder, his son’s voice fading into nothing – he couldn’t even _look _at Steven anymore –

_“Don’t bother, Steve,” _a new voice said. _“It’s like you said – he’s a grade A asshole.”_

This broke through Paul’s skull in a way that nothing else had – _so _he _was the asshole? _– No – he couldn’t – his feet moved involuntarily, turning back in one motion and meeting Steven head-on –

“Do you have _any _idea what you put us through?” Paul hissed as he closed the gap between himself and Steven. “What your mother and I _went _through?”

Tears were rolling down Steven’s face as he looked at him with such desperate _pain _in his eyes. There was something in his eyes _willing _Paul to understand – that this was _not _his choice – but Paul didn’t want to hear it – he didn’t _want _to understand the reason why – he didn’t want to hear what had driven his son to _leave –_

He didn’t want to know the reason for the agony in Steven’s eyes.

Paul could hear the second voice – the voice that had proclaimed him an asshole – protesting against the officers grabbing his arm – the voice was yanking his arm free –

_“-Hargrove, you’re under arrest-”_

_“Don’t touch me, you fucking pig!”_

The name rang a bell – _Billy Hargrove _– another Starcourt victim – _or not, evidently. _Paul didn’t know much about him – he’d been at school with Steven – been on the basketball team with him – he’d heard stories that Hargrove’s funeral had gotten the best of his father – a day later, Neil Hargrove had left his wife and stepdaughter – _another family torn apart by loss – another lie that had ruined so many other lives…_

The cars from the roadblock were being brought towards them – Hopper, Joyce Byers, Hargrove and Steven were still determinedly resisting arrest – the dim sounds of Hopper trying to reason with Powell were evidently being met with very short shrift – Hargrove still hadn’t let them put handcuffs even close to his wrist – Joyce Byers was screaming bloody murder at an officer who was gently starting to ease Will Byers and Jonathan away from her – _they _weren’t happy about it, either, and all the while, Steven was still screaming at Paul, begging _desperately _for Paul to just _look _at him, his voice as ragged and thick as Paul’s own. The cacophony of voices overlapped, making it easier to tune out as Paul couldn’t even _look _at them – at _any _of them – he couldn’t look at Steven –

_Steven, the reason for everything he’d done over the last eight months, the mop of brown hair on a body barely big enough to wrap his arms around his waist, the last thread that had held his marriage to Linda together for years through affair after affair –_

_“Powell, this is insane-”_

_“Get the hell away from my kids-”_

_“Don’t touch her – Mom!”_

_“Jonathan – it’ll be okay – stay away from your father-”_

_“Get your fucking hands off me-”_

_“Powell, it’s me you’re talking about, you _know _I didn’t murder anyone-”_

_“Dad – Dad, please, just _listen to me!”

Paul stilled, a hand on the open door of his car as he fought not to turn back – his eyes were pressed tightly shut to hold back the tears that he _didn’t want to shed – because Steven evidently didn’t care and he was not going to let Steven see –_

“Were you _ever _going to tell us?” Paul felt himself whisper – he wasn’t aware that he was turning until the image of his son’s face swam in front of him. “Were you _ever _going to come home?”

And at last, Steven stopped speaking – stopped pleading desperately as he was rendered speechless. Tears were rolling down his face as the answer was etched there clear as day, no answer that would ever be acceptable to Paul for truth or meaning carved into his face.

“I thought not,” Paul whispered, uncaring at last if the sting of betrayal showed on his face as the tears that he had been so desperately trying to hold back finally slipped down his face.

He turned away as the clamouring of protests against Paul’s decision rose – the children had now joined in – Paul couldn’t even see them – he couldn’t see the car right in front of him – all he could see was Steven’s body sagging in defeat into Callahan’s arms –

A sound in the trees cut off all protests to the attempted arrest as every head in the circle snapped to look back up the road in the direction that Hopper and Steven had come from mere minutes earlier – _had it really only been minutes? _Paul peered into the darkness…

“If you want to arrest us,” Hopper’s tone was dark, every word weighted with fear and trepidation, “get us into those cars. _Now._”

The words sent a shiver up Paul’s spine as he looked out into utter silence – he could feel everyone on edge as nobody dared to even breathe – it was as though the wind stopped blowing through the trees, the forest stopped making noise – nothing was moving –

“Sir…” Powell muttered hesitantly.

Paul stepped out from around his car, looking out into the darkness – it was as if the world was waiting – _was there something in the trees –_

The world exploded.

Something enormous came charging at him, bursting out of the trees – he froze in terror as he saw it come straight for him –

He fell sideways, hitting the floor as something careened into his side – he rolled sideways as he realised that he’d been pushed out of the way – his head shot towards whoever had shoved him to the ground –

His heart stopped at the sight that greeted him. Powell was lying on the floor beside him – a huge, grey creature bearing down on him – _Paul had never seen anything like it – _humanoid, but bigger – bigger than any man Paul had ever seen – hands that ended in claws larger than his forearm – its face a flower of teeth that screamed into Powell’s face –

The claws sank into Powell’s side, tearing through his uniform and flesh like it was sand – the teeth sank down onto Powell’s shoulder – Paul’s ears finally caught up to the noise that had exploded with the rest of the world – Powell was screaming with pain – he wasn’t the only one screaming – he could hear voices yelling from where the others were standing – gunfire was exploding – Paul found himself scrambling to his feet –

The movement caught the attention of the _creature _– it turned towards him and _screamed _at him – Paul could see blood dripping from its many teeth as it drew itself up to its full height – Paul couldn’t get to his feet fast enough –

A blinding white light came from behind the creature. It flared up over the road as the creature let out an agonised screech that faded into a whine as an acrid smell filled the air – _it was burning –_

The creature slumped down, dead, over Powell’s form and Paul’s eyes shot up to see Steven standing behind it, a taser falling from his fingers into the dirt. Paul caught a glimpse of activity beyond him – _there were more of those things –_

Powell let out a wet, choking gasp, spluttering on a cough as Paul saw blood fill his mouth. Paul scrambled towards him, trying to shove the creature’s lifeless corpse away from him – _it was too heavy –_

But then another pair of hands was helping – the creature tossed aside as shouts continued to echo around them – _there were more of those monstrous screams – _and Paul found himself crouching over Powell, his hands hovering over Powell’s chest while Steven didn’t hesitate to grab Powell’s own hand and press it down hard against one of the huge gashes in his side.

“There’s a military hospital not far from Hawkins Lab,” Steven breathed. “Take him there – if you go now, he might have a chance.”

A burst of gunfire exploded above their heads as another roaring scream shattered through the shattered night. Paul’s brain couldn’t quite catch up – _Steven knew these things – they were after him – they were capable of killing people within seconds – they had almost killed Powell – he shouldn’t be here – he didn’t understand – he could think of nothing – nothing – _nothing _beyond the man bleeding out on the asphalt between them –_

“_Dad!_” Steven hissed, snapping his fingers in front of his face – _hadn’t Paul taught him better? – _“Dad, he needs a hospital!”

The truth of this simple statement was enough for Paul to put his shock and horror aside as he pushed himself to his feet – Steven gestured towards the driver’s side of the door as he hauled Powell over towards the passenger side – _it was probably going to ruin the upholstery, but that didn’t matter now – _Steven yanked the door open and pushed Powell into the seat as Paul scrambled into the car – Steven made to shut the door –

“_Steven!_” Paul called out desperately.

Steven froze, looking at him.

“Get in the car,” Paul had wanted it to come out as a demand – an order – something that would not be defied – but all that came out was a whisper, a desperate plea, lacking all the force behind it, a final attempt to reclaim the little boy that Paul once knew, the little boy who had gone from the world, carried off by monsters that had stolen him in the night long before Paul had ever learnt that he was gone.

_“Steve!”_

Another voice sounded in the world beyond the bubble the two of them shared, forcing them to look around as they took in the complete devastation outside of the car. Hopper and Billy Hargrove were evidently providing what little cover they could for Steve and Paul to get Powell out, but they were losing ground – the monsters would not be kept at bay by weak gunfire that proved to be little more than an annoyance to the creatures, like flies landing on a horse’s flank, and they could not afford to wait much longer. The kids were scrambling into the cars abandoned by Hopper, Steven and Jonathan Byers, but they were the lucky ones. The officers sent to apprehend Hopper had been torn apart by the creatures that had broken through in amongst them – Callahan was making his way towards the car, knowing that their only chance of survival was running – one of two officers still standing while the rest lay dead or dying on the asphalt…

_Paul had sent them to their deaths._

Hargrove yelled Steven’s name again – the Buckley girl jumped out of the car with a baseball bat filled with nails – and Paul _knew _in that instant that they were waiting for Steven – _they were_ _risking their lives to grant Steven these few precious moments with Paul…_

The way Steven looked at him now, the sad acknowledgement shared between them told Paul that Steven understood this with perhaps more clarity than Paul, and Paul knew what Steven’s answer would be before it left his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Steven muttered as he shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Dad, I can’t.”

Paul’s eyes filled with tears at the visible effort it took Steven to close the car door. Paul’s hands fumbled with the key still in the ignition as he watched Steven pull himself away, sprinting away from the car – pulling a _gun _from a holster on his side – _Paul hadn’t even noticed it _– and fired off three shots at the creature bearing down on Callahan as he sprinted back to Billy. It was all Callahan needed to get the last few steps towards his own car as Steven came up beside Billy, the last thing remaining as Hopper, Buckley, Hargrove and Steven piled into their respective cars.

Powell gave an alarming, spine chilling splutter, dragging Paul back to the pressing urgency of his own task. He turned the key in the ignition and pulled the car round, praying that this military hospital was at least signposted as he floored the accelerator, bursting through the abandoned roadblock. He chanced a glance in the rearview mirror as he sped away, sickened at the relief he felt that none of those _things _following him, too absorbed in the prize that came from their kill – _their kill _– Paul felt sick to his stomach.

_He had just watched those creatures kill almost twenty people in the space of three minutes._

_If Powell hadn’t shoved him to the side, he would have been one of them. _

_If Steven hadn’t killed that creature, he would have been one of them._

Paul had never felt so _lost. _Fundamental facts about the world he lived in – the bedrock of the state of his life at that very moment – were _lies. _Solid concrete foundations became quicksand as Paul couldn’t process what his mind was telling him, images of the last few minutes flashing through his mind –

_Steven standing there, alive – falling to one side to come face to face with something that could not exist on God’s earth – Steven standing behind its smouldering corpse a moment later, weapon in hand – Steven shoving Powell into the front seat of his car before turning away –_

Paul had to get Powell to a hospital. Hawkins Lab was much closer than Hawkins Memorial Hospital – if he could find the military hospital, then they would be able to save him. It was Paul’s one clear task. And then…

_And then…_

Paul had no idea what he would do then.

-:-

Steve didn’t look at Billy as the car swung around, speeding away from the scene. Billy floored the accelerator as he pushed the car to its limit, pushing away from the Demogorgons that seemed content with tearing the flesh off the bones of the officers. _Another bloodbath left in their wake, this time largely comprising of good people, innocent people – they’d worked with Hopper, for God’s sake…_

“Steve?” Billy’s voice jolted through Steve’s musings. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Steve replied, a little too quickly.

Billy was evidently not convinced.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Steve hoped his tone conveyed that he did _not _want the conversation to continue.

Billy, however, would not be deterred.

“Okay, let me rephrase the question,” he sighed. “_Should _we talk about it?”

Steve did his best to ignore Billy.

“Steve, your dad just found out you’re alive and the first thing he did was try to have you arrested,” Billy pointed out. “I think that’s worth a conversation, at least-”

“Well, you’ve summed it up _very _nicely, so there’s not much more to say, is there?”

“Steve-”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Billy,” Steve said in a tone of finality – _as though that would deter Billy. _“So can we _please _just drop it?”

“Steve-”

“I said _drop it, _Billy!”

A ringing silence fell in the car as Steve caught a glimpse of Dustin and Max in the rearview mirror, looking surprised and more than a little scared. Steve knew that a certain amount of the fear came from residual adrenaline of running for their lives from a pack of Demogorgons that would be giving chase just as soon as they had finished their feast, but this didn’t stop the slight twist of guilt that complemented the rest of the nauseating feeling in his stomach.

_“Do you have any idea what you put us through? What your mother and I went through?”_

_“Were you ever going to tell us? Were you ever going to come home?”_

He could dimly hear Billy tell Dustin to radio Hopper and ask where they were going as he curled sideways towards the window, staring blankly out at the trees shooting past the car in a darkened blur. He heard Dustin’s voice murmur words he couldn’t bring himself to understand before Hopper’s words penetrated through his awareness.

_“We’ll go to the hospital,” _Hopper said. _“From there, we’ll work out a plan.”_

Steve found himself frowning as he sat up straighter, pushing himself away from the window. “No,” he said flatly.

He reached behind him and gestured for Dustin to hand him the radio. Dustin looked confused for a moment as he pressed it into his hand. Steve did his best to ignore the worry in his eyes.

“Hopper, you heard Owens – the hospital isn’t equipped to deal with a threat like this,” he pointed out. “If we go there, we’re just leading the Demogorgons straight there.”

_“Well, what do you _want _us to do?” _Hopper’s voice sounded distinctly unimpressed through the radio. _“Anywhere we go, we’re going to have those things on our tail. The backup plan was always to go to the hospital and work out our next step from there.”_

“Hopper, if we do that, we’re as good as dead,” Steve pointed out. “We _can’t _go there – they’re after _us. _The only way to get rid of them is to end this – _tonight._”

The only sound in the car following Steve’s statement was the white noise coming from the radio as Hopper didn’t answer. Eventually, the noise was cut off to be replaced by heavy breathing, and Steve got the impression that Hopper was choosing his next words carefully.

_“Kid,” _Hopper finally said. _“I get why you want to do that, but we need backup if we want to break into the Lab.”_

“Not if El isn’t coming with us,” Steve pointed out. “If it’s just a matter of getting in, getting a hard drive and closing the Gate, we’ll stand a better chance of getting hold of a hard drive if we do it quietly.”

_“Kid…” _Hopper’s voice faded into heavy breathing before static once again filled the car.

“We need to end this tonight,” Steve said firmly. “We can’t have those things running loose in Hawkins, they’ve already killed _God knows _how many people back there alone.”

Steve couldn’t help but feel the slightest twinge of guilt referencing the scene that they had just fled. He had seen the horror in Hopper’s eyes as Powell had knocked his father aside before getting torn apart by the Demogorgon. Steve knew Powell’s life was in the hands of God and his father’s ability to find a military hospital based on extremely vague directions – _partly because Steve didn’t know himself where the military hospital was _– and he could only imagine what Hopper must have felt watching people he’d served with for years get torn apart by Demogorgons, completely unable to save them. As the silence stretched, filled only by static and intermittent heavy breathing coming out of the radio as Hopper struggled with a response, Steve took a deep breath as he finally played the last card in his hand.

“I told my dad to take Powell to the military hospital,” Steve explained. “I thought they might be able to save him there.”

_And that was it. _The decision was taken out of Hopper’s hands. The hospital was no longer an option – it never _had _been an option. Hopper let out a sigh as he finally formed a response.

_“Fine,”_ Hopper’s voice cut through the static. _“We end this. Tonight.”_

Steve closed his eyes as his lips pulled sideways. It wasn’t a smile, but rather a tightening of the muscles around his eyes as his closed lips stretched sideways over his clenched jaw.

“Steve,” Billy muttered quietly next to him. “Are you sure about this?”

Steve gave a tight nod as a tear escaped his clenched eyes and rolled down his cheek.

-:-

Hopper gave the instruction over the radio to pull over by the side of the road at the same bend he had parked when he had gone with Owens the previous morning – _had it really only been yesterday?_

Joyce followed Billy as he pulled the car to the side of the road. Hopper got out of the car with a wince, keeping a close eye on Steve as he avoided just about all eye contact. Steve clambered out of the car awkwardly, his eyes turned downwards as Hopper found himself staring into the blackness of the forest.

“It’s about a quarter mile to the Lab from here,” Hopper announced. “The fastest way is through the trees. Steve, Billy and I will go – the rest of you should take the cars and find somewhere safe.”

Joyce gave him a determined look but didn’t say anything.

“Where _is _safe?” Nancy pointed out. “I thought the whole reason we were doing this tonight is that there _wasn’t _anywhere safe left to go?”

“There isn’t anywhere safe left for _us _to go,” Steve explained. “Those things are after us-”

“No, they’re after _El,_” Mike snapped. “They’ve _always _been after El – that hasn’t changed.”

“Their tune’s going to change pretty quickly when they realise we’re breaking into the Lab,” Hopper muttered. “You’ve got a chance to get away while they’re focused on us. Maybe see if you can get in contact with Murray or something – or get in touch with Owens, see if the Department of Energy has got a safehouse anywhere.”

Nancy looked like she had an argument she still wanted to make, but she momentarily lacked the vocabulary to form it to her satisfaction. Hopper took advantage of her silence and turned towards Steve and Billy.

“We need to work out what we’re going to do – how we’re going to do this,” he said. “You boys mentioned something about the top floor?”

Billy nodded with a glance at Steve. “Yeah, they completely gutted the building on the other side, but the top floor was left mostly intact. I don’t know if the Gate reaches that high, but our best chance of getting in unnoticed is either at the top or the bottom of the Gate.”

“The problem with the bottom of the Gate is that the other side is absolutely _crawling _with Demogorgons,” Steve mentioned. “But I _think _the top floor is mostly intact on the other side.”

“You _think?_”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah, I mean…” he twisted his face into an uncertain expression. “Like… eighty-five, ninety percent sure.”

Billy quirked an eyebrow as he smirked at Steve while Hopper ran a hand over his face in exasperation.

“What happens if you’re wrong?” Hopper found himself asking far more out of necessity than any desire to know the answer.

“Well…” Steve paused. “We’d then have a five-storey jump down onto a machine that’s surrounded by Russians who will almost certainly know we’re there and shoot us.”

Hopper glared at Steve momentarily before shaking his head and closing his eyes. “Great.”

“Well, _hopefully_ that won’t be a problem,” Billy tried to smooth things over. “But I can _imagine _that the fun part will be getting up to the Gate in the first place without anyone realising we’re in the building.”

Hopper inwardly groaned. _Billy really knew how to hit the nail on the head. _

“You have a weird definition of _‘fun’,_ Hargrove,” Hopper grumbled. “There’s only one way in and out of the Lab these days, and that’s the main door. It’ll probably be guarded.”

“We could take them out?” Steve suggested. “Billy’s a pretty good shot.”

“Yeah, but someone could hear the gunshots,” Hopper pointed out. “There’s always a risk that one of them could run off and warn someone else, which would make the rest of our job a hell of a lot harder.”

Hopper did _not _want a repeat of the previous day, struggling to get Owens out of the Lab unconscious. The only reason that he and Owens hadn’t died was because the Russians had wanted to follow him to get to El – he didn’t think he’d be as lucky again.

“What about a distraction?” Billy offered.

“Billy, you just said that we _didn’t _want them to know we were in the building,” Steve sighed.

“We could set a distraction _away _from the Lab – something they’d see and go to investigate.”

“Like _what, _Billy?”

“I don’t know – like a fire in the trees or something-”

“We’re _not_ starting any wildfires,” Hopper didn’t _quite _believe that he had to say that, but his patience was at the end of its tether. They were running out of time – _those things could find them at any moment…_

He turned to Billy.

“How good a shot _are _you?” Hopper asked.

Billy looked at him warily. “Decent enough – not military standard, but decent.”

Steve gave an amused grin. Hopper ignored him.

“If you got close enough, could you make a shot from the treeline through the door?”

Billy frowned dubiously at Hopper. “I – I _guess _I could…”

“Okay,” Hopper pushed past his reluctance to treat Billy and Steve as anything more than teenagers out of their depth. He could hear Joyce’s words ringing in his ears – _they’re not little kids anymore…_

“We don’t have a better plan,” Hopper sighed. “We’ll go and we’ll try and take out the guards at the front door. We’ll get to the top floor and get through the Gate and one of you can go find one of these goddamn planes and get the hard drive off it or whatever it is that we need. I’ll go with the other and find the keys for the failsafe.”

It was hardly a foolproof plan – most of it relied on chance as well as Billy Hargrove’s marksmanship, which Hopper had as much confidence in as Billy seemed to have, but Hopper wasn’t a terrible shot himself. If they were _very, very _lucky, they could take out the guards at the door without anyone noticing, and failing that, they could improvise. What they _could not _do was stay on the side of the road debating this any further.

“Wait,” Joyce said. “I’m coming too.”

Both Steve and Billy reeled around, looking at her with identical dubious expressions.

“You’re _joking, _right?” Billy asked incredulously.

“Mom, _what-_” Jonathan began, but was cut off by Joyce.

“If you’re not going in with military help, you might need an extra pair of hands,” Joyce explained with a small smile.

“Mrs Byers-” Steve began to protest.

“Mom, what are you doing?” Jonathan sounded upset and more than a little angry. He turned to Hopper, pleading for him to _do something, _to put an end to Joyce’s insanity.

Hopper put a hand on her arm and pulled her to one side, turning his body away from the others as he shot a look to Jonathan, hoping to convey that he should let Hopper handle it.

“Are you sure about this?” Hopper murmured to Joyce. “You know how this might end.”

Joyce gave him a determined nod with a reassuring smile. “It’s like I said last night, Hop,” she breathed. “You’re not doing this on your own.”

Hopper looked down and nodded once, a sad smile on his face as he looked down at her. “You know…” he muttered. “Every time I think I know how lucky I am to have you, you always find a way to surprise me.”

She gave him a tiny shrug as a familiar fire shone in her eyes. “Well, there’s no way in hell I’m letting you leave me alone.”

Hopper wrapped his arms around her as he glanced back towards Billy and Steve. Joyce pulled herself out of Hopper’s arms and went over to Will, leaving Hopper to watch a sea of exchanges as El came up to him.

“Stay safe,” El told him firmly. There was sadness in her eyes, but acceptance there, too. She understood how this might end. She didn’t tell him to come back – she knew that may not be his call – she knew that even if it _was, _it may not be the call that he wanted to make, but he nodded tightly at her with a smile.

“You too,” he breathed back as he pulled her into a hug. “Don’t be stupid.”

She gave a small laugh against his chest. “We’re not stupid,” she breathed.

Steve found himself beset by Dustin, who seemed in much more of a state of denial than Robin, who came to hug him next, a knowing look in her eyes as she found herself leaning against his shoulder as Steve whispered placating words of comfort.

_“It’s okay, Robin… I got lucky once, maybe I’ll get lucky again…”_

Joyce finally let Will go to pull Jonathan into her arms briefly before whispering determined instructions to him.

_“Look after Will, okay? You’re eighteen now, so… if something happens, take care of him.”_

_“I will, Mom…”_

Billy tried to walk towards Max, but Max pushed herself away, shaking her head as tears poured down her blotchy cheeks.

_“Please don’t do this, please, please don’t do this…”_

Billy finally managed to catch her, pulling her against his chest as she crumbled.

_“Bye, shitbird.”_

Hopper cleared his throat pointedly, feeling his chest tighten as he shattered the last moments, the crushing feeling of loss permeating their very souls. Billy, Steve and Joyce didn’t need any further encouragement as they pulled themselves away from the group. Steve shouldered the flamethrower as Billy tossed the car keys over to Robin before they each offered a wave and a forced smile.

Hopper felt his fingers entangle with Joyce’s, squeezing her hand tightly as a reassurance for what they were about to do.

-:-

Jonathan felt restless, pacing back and forth as he twisted his car keys in his hands. He could feel Will’s eyes on him as his head kept swinging back towards the space in the trees where the others had disappeared mere moments ago.

“She shouldn’t have gone,” he breathed. He knew that he wasn’t the only person on edge about it – Max hadn’t been able to stop the desperate, choking sounds at being forced to say goodbye to her stepbrother less than a day after getting him back, and Robin had peeled herself a little way away from the others, a hand resting on the side of the black car that Billy had handed her the keys to, eyes closed and deaf to the world.

“She just wants to help,” Will murmured back.

“There are other ways,” Jonathan snarled, his hands gripping tightly around the keys in his hands, feeling the teeth bite into his palm. “Other ways to help that don’t involve a _suicide _mission.”

It was a poor choice of words considering the final eventuality. He saw Dustin blanch at the words, the denial in his eyes wavering at Jonathan’s vehemence. But Jonathan ignored him, ignored the twist of guilt in his stomach. He felt his legs shaking with nervous energy, a burning need to do – _something. _Something more substantial than running and hiding – _because where was there left to hide?_

The beginnings of an idea crept into his mind – he looped his finger into the keyring in his hand and started spinning the keys around in a fast circle as his breath came faster – _it was risky – it would see him in the crosshairs – but it would give the others an opening –_

“Robin!”

The words left his mouth before he realised that he was speaking. The nervous energy converted itself into decisive action as he swung the door to his car open, not looking at anyone.

“Take the others, get them out of here. Just drive – keep driving.”

The cryptic instructions left more questions than answers for the others as he swung himself into the car.

“What the hell are you doing?” Robin asked as he started the engine.

“I’m going to give them their distraction.”

“_What?_”

The shout from Will was the only thing that stopped him from slamming the door shut and driving off as a hand held the door wide open. He forced himself to look at Will, giving him a reassuring smile.

“It’ll be okay,” Jonathan said softly. “Just look after yourself.”

Will froze for a moment before grabbing his radio and handing it to Jonathan.

“Stay in touch,” Will murmured, a quiet force behind it that would not be defied on this occasion.

Jonathan nodded before leaning out and looking at Robin. “Don’t hang around,” he grinned at her. “It might get crowded here.”

Robin looked more perplexed than she had done a moment before as Jonathan pulled the door shut –

_Only for the passenger door to open and for Nancy to slide into the car next to him._

“What are you-”

“I’m coming with you,” she said defiantly. “Whatever you’re doing, I’m staying with you.”

“Nancy, it’s going to be dangerous-”

“Exactly,” she explained matter-of-factly. “You might need me.”

-:-

For whatever reason, the tear in the fence had been left unguarded and untouched. Hopper pushed through the wire as he pressed himself against the trees as Joyce, Steve and Billy followed. He stayed low, pressing himself down to the ground as he found himself getting closer to the parking lot. If he could get to the edge of the parking lot, they could stay hidden in the bushes under cover of darkness and he and Billy could try and make the various shots required to get rid of the guards without anyone else noticing until they were inside.

Hopper couldn’t help but feel on-edge about the whole situation. _They’d left the gap in the fence untouched – Ozerov knew where it was – after all the mind games the Mind Flayer had proven itself more than capable of playing, was it another trick?_

His heart thundered in his chest far more than Hopper thought was good for it as the parking lot came into view, and he instantly saw why Ozerov and the Russians had been so blasé about leaving the fence open for anyone to walk in.

_They were expected._

A small army stood between them and the door. Soldiers stroked guns that glinted off the moonlight. Demogorgons stood tall and proud, their thick hide glistening with residue of the Upside Down. The Demogorgons seemed to become more alert the closer Hopper got –

_Not Hopper. Steve._

Steve’s hands were still covered with dried blood from Powell. While the Demogorgons were evidently not as sensitive to it as they were to fresh blood, it was enough to have a few faceless heads closest to them turn towards them, grotesque lips fluttering with purring growls.

_There was no way for Hopper and Billy to take out the guards before they were found._

Their one saving grace was that the Russians hadn’t noticed them. They were expecting them, that much was painfully apparent, but they were yet to realise that they were _there._ Hopper glanced around at Steve and Billy, both of whom had grim expressions on their faces, expressions that said clearer than any words ever could what Hopper was thinking. Joyce wasn’t quite able to hide her fear behind the determination in her eyes, but Hopper _knew _her – he _knew _when she was putting on a brave face, and this was not one of those times. The determination and the fear mixed together to create a fiery, unstoppable force. She was afraid, but she would not be deterred. It was genuine courage, the courage that Hopper had seen in so many people, not facing the threat with fearlessness, but the true courage of facing fear and doing what needed to be done anyway, because _this _was the goal. _This _was the mission. _This was what needed to be done._

Even if any hope of getting in completely undetected had just evaporated.

Hopper found himself gesturing backwards into the trees, slipping as quietly as he could. He found himself in awe of Steve and Billy’s ability to move stealthily, their footsteps completely inaudible as they carefully placed each foot so as only to disturb the dirt, making sure not to step on any stray twigs as they slipped further back into the trees, keeping the door in sight.

“There’s no other way in, is there?” Billy breathed, his voice barely even a whisper on the wind. If Hopper hadn’t seen his mouth move, he would have sworn blind that he had imagined it.

“Not even a vent or something?” Steve breathed equally quietly as he looked at Hopper.

Hopper met them with a dark look and a shake of the head.

“We need backup,” Hopper breathed, trying to match their volume as best he could. “We need to get to the hospital, we need to find Owens and we need to do this properly-”

“We _can’t,_” Steve hissed. “We can’t wait – there’s no _telling _what will happen if we wait-”

“_Keep your voice down!_” Hopper hissed back. “I know why you want to do this tonight, but we can’t get through that-”

A roar – _far too close for comfort_ – suddenly broke them off as the four of them wheeled their heads around to peer through the trees. Guns were raised, flashlights shone in the night and the Demogorgons looked ready to pounce, but not at _them –_

They were staring towards the main entrance as a car smashed through the barrier.

-:-

Jonathan was left reeling as the metal barrier bent with the force of the car ploughing into it at sixty miles an hour. He skidded to a halt at the gentle bend of the driveway up to the parking lot, his windscreen shattered as he and Nancy found themselves pushing the airbags in front of their faces down.

“Are you okay?” Jonathan gasped.

Nancy gave him a glare that was undermined by a small smile. “You think you’ve made enough of a mess to get their attention?”

There was a roar in the distance as flashlights bobbed in the distance. Shouts started echoing in a language neither could understand –

“I’d say yes?” Jonathan tilted his head to one side.

“I think we should go,” Nancy concurred.

Jonathan flung the car into reverse before swinging it around and pressing his foot down on the accelerator, speeding away from the Lab.

-:-

The Russians at the door started moving, yelling words between them as they took off towards the cars parked. Steve’s heart was pounding at the sudden change in the air, the tension snapping as he felt himself grin at their sudden reversal of fortune.

“Someone just crashed a car into the barrier at the entrance,” Steve translated for Hopper and Joyce. “They’ve driven off – the Russians are going after them.”

“_What?_” Joyce hissed. “I swear to God, if that’s Jonathan-”

“Whoever it was just gave us our best chance at getting in,” Billy cut over Joyce’s ramblings, gesturing to the suddenly empty entrance as cars pulled away from the main door. A single guard remained, shoulders tensed as he gripped the gun like a lifeline, white-knuckled, clearly unsettled by the whole situation. Billy raised his gun, aiming it through the trees –

Steve put a hand on the gun, pushing it down as a grin crept across his face.

“I’ve got an idea,” Steve muttered.

Billy gave him an alarmed look. “Nothing good has come from those words, Steve.”

“Well, I think you’ll like this one,” Steve muttered. “It’s better than leaving a dead body for anyone to discover at any time. Just do what I do and let me do the talking.”

“Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like this?” Hopper growled.

Steve couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face just before he covered it with his mask and pulled his hood up. “Just follow my lead and try to look guilty.”

“Wait – _what-_”

Those were the only words that escaped Hopper’s lips before Steve shoved him out into the open, pulling a gun and training it on Hopper. Hopper looked alarmed as he raised his hands while Billy caught on and did the same with Joyce, fortunately having the foresight to cover his face and pull up his hood. The Russian at the door approached them, flashlight shining at them as he took in Hopper’s appearance.

_“What is going on?”_ the soldier asked in Russian.

_“We found the Americans,” _Steve answered, keeping to familiar phrases and hoping his accent was passable. _“We need to take them to Comrade General Ozerov.”_

The soldier looked terrified but gave them a small nod. _“I think he’s by the Gate.”_

Steve nodded, gun still raised as he pressed it between Hopper’s shoulder blades as he pushed him through the door. Behind him, he caught glimpses of Billy doing the same to Joyce. They made it as far as the stairwell, pushing their way through the door and checking it was empty before Steve finally lowered his gun.

“Worked like a charm,” Steve breathed.

“I’d like some warning next time,” Hopper growled, lowering his hands. “Let’s go.”

They started sprinting up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Billy and Steve didn’t dare lower their masks in case they needed to adopt the same pretence, but evidently the car crash seemed to be the biggest concern, leaving the stairwell clear. Steve counted his blessings. The soldier terrified out of his mind was one thing – if they’d come into contact with someone even _slightly_ less out of their depth, their few pet phrases hidden behind confidence would undoubtedly crumble under the scrutiny required by the Soviet Union.

Their luck held as they came out onto the top floor to find it completely deserted. Their task of blocking the windows done, the rooms served little more than an ornamental purpose, there only because getting rid of them would be too much hassle. He followed Hopper as he led the way through the labyrinth of passages that Hopper had become too familiar with the previous day, before –

A pulsating red glow heralded their arrival as the four of them found themselves face to face with the Gate. Steve glanced at the others, their wide eyes reflecting the glowing crack in the wall that carved its way through the floor. Hopper’s eyes held trepidation, Joyce’s held the same fearful determination that Hopper would call _true courage_, and Billy’s eyes held memories of horrors the likes of which only Steve could understand.

“Hey,” Steve breathed. “Are you okay?”

Billy’s expression didn’t change as he gave a tiny nod. His eyes held the same defiant anger that united them all, a determination to _finish this – to end this nightmare._

“Are you _sure _about this?” Hopper asked one last time.

Steve turned back to the Gate. “Yes,” he breathed. “I’m sure.”

Hopper didn’t press it any further, giving him a nod as the four of them faced the nightmare. “Then let’s end this.”

Steve gave Billy one last look as they both nodded to each other before he turned back and sprinted towards the Gate, launching himself into the air and into the Upside Down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is dedicated to AmazingFrerard who let slip that it's their birthday today. Speaking as someone with a lockdown birthday too, have a great, safe birthday and I hope I got the time difference right so you actually got it on your birthday!


	48. Part 4 Chapter 13: Into The Upside Down

Billy found himself staggering to keep his feet after landing the jump _slightly _more successfully than he had when he had left the Upside Down a few days earlier. Steve, lacking that crucial first attempt, seemed to have accepted his fate of ending up on the floor and had rolled with the remaining momentum before pushing himself to his feet. Billy turned around to see Hopper and Joyce make the jump together, hand in hand, neither landing particularly successfully, Hopper stumbling to save Joyce from the worst of the fall and taking the brunt of the impact in the process.

The Upside Down was just as nightmarish as Billy remembered, the strange vines creeping along the wall towards the Gate while the white flakes drifted through the air. Billy glanced at Hopper and Joyce as Joyce clambered to her feet, the angry, fearful determination on her face more pronounced than Billy had seen it as her eyes stared beyond the vines, beyond the white ash in the air into memories that only seemed to fuel her anger. Steve, too, had a faraway look in his eyes, but he hid it behind a smile as he tore his gaze away from the vines towards Hopper.

“What did I tell you?” Steve breathed as Hopper got to his feet, rubbing his side with a pained expression on his face. “I was _sure _they’d left the top floor intact.”

Hopper gave Steve a weak glare at the words. “Yeah, Harrington, I can see that,” he hissed as he pressed a hand to his side. “I can _feel _it, too.”

Billy ignored them, glancing around the room that was mercifully – and _bafflingly_ – empty. He edged towards the wall away from the crack in the floor, glimpsing Steve, Hopper and Joyce follow suit in his periphery.

_Where the hell _was _everyone?_

Steve gestured at the doorway with one hand, pointing down the corridor beyond towards the nightmarish equivalent of the staircase that they had just climbed in their world. Billy gave a tiny nod before walking towards the far door and pressing himself against the wall beside it as he peered out into the corridor beyond. Behind him, Joyce and Hopper both pressed their hands over their mouths against the strange white flakes that Hopper seemed to be fighting not to gag on.

There was nothing in the corridor beyond the doorway, no visible soldiers or guards of any kind. Much like on the other side of the Gate, the Russians all seemed too preoccupied with the potential threat that they posed and had let their guard slip while they dealt with whoever had crashed a car into the front entrance to the Lab. At least, that’s what Billy _hoped_ was the case. _Still, it wasn’t like the Russians to be this lax._

“We’re clear outside,” Billy breathed as he turned to the others. “We need to see what we’re up against – I don’t like that they’ve suddenly left this top floor alone on _both _sides of the Gate. It’s not like them at all. Whatever we do, we need to be quick.”

Steve concurred with a nod. “I think I know where the keys to turn off the machine will be,” he muttered. “If we split up, we can cover more ground faster.”

Billy nodded. “If they’ve left a car out front, I can probably get to the planes in about fifteen minutes.”

“They’ll have a car out front,” Steve nodded.

Hopper looked between the two. “Joyce, you probably would know what this hard drive looks like,” he suggested. “If you go with Hargrove, do you reckon you’d be able to find it?”

Joyce nodded. “I’m not sure if it’s a hard drive exactly, but planes have these black boxes that contain all the data from the flights. I think that’s what Owens was talking about.”

She was met with three confused stares – intricate technical knowledge of the inner workings of planes was the _last _thing that Billy had expected to leave Joyce’s mouth. She gave them all an unimpressed look as she shrugged.

“Bob never shut up about them,” she explained simply.

Hopper closed his eyes for a split second before shaking his head slightly and regaining control of the situation. “Right – Joyce, you go with Hargrove. See if you can find a black box thingy. I’ll go with Harrington to try and find these keys to turn off the machine.”

“If we can make it down to the main entrance together, we’ll be able to see what we’re up against by the Gate,” Steve breathed. “Then we can split up.”

Billy nodded before peering out of the doorway.

“I think the coast is clear,” he breathed. “Let’s go.”

He slipped out into the corridor, which was still completely empty. It didn’t make even the slightest bit of sense to Billy – the Russians had the resources to keep the place well-guarded. It was too easy, too _convenient… _The Russians wouldn’t have sent everyone through the Gate, they would have left a skeleton guard – they _should _have left a skeleton guard – it wasn’t like them to leave the machine completely exposed here. He didn’t dare allow himself to feel relief, because there was always, always, _always _a catch –

_And the last time they hadn’t worked out the catch in time, they had been locked in a cage with a monster before Billy was tortured half to death._

He had no particular desire to repeat that experience.

They rounded a corner to see a clear corridor to the door to the stairwell. Billy was getting increasingly annoyed at Joyce Byers’ inability to _keep her goddamn footsteps quiet – she was in sneakers, for God’s sake, wasn’t that the whole point of them? She should never have come – this needed to be a three-man operation – three people who were entirely essential – she was _breathing _too loudly – they needed to be quiet – if they were seen –_

Their luck ran out as the door to the stairwell swung open. Billy froze, glancing around for anywhere to hide, a corner behind which to duck –

_“Hey!”_

The shout in Russian told Billy that the game was up. Two soldiers emerged, guns raised as they walked towards them. One was stocky, taller than Billy, while the other had a slightly more lithe frame. Both had cloth masks over their noses and mouths, their eyes watching them suspiciously.

_“What’s going on?”_ the larger of the two asked, staying in Russian. _“Who are these people?”_

_“Intruders, comrade,” _Steve said in Russian before Billy could answer. _“They were found by the Gate. We were bringing them down to the Comrade General.”_

The Russians exchanged confused and dubious looks, not lowering their guns.

_“The Comrade General is on the other side…” _the thinner soldier said.

_“Who are you?” _the stockier one demanded._ “Where are Mishnev and Preobrazhensky?”_

Steve faltered slightly at the sudden change in the conversation, his gambit falling apart in less than a second. The larger soldier leaned towards his radio –

Billy didn’t hesitate. He raised his gun and aimed a single shot at the larger one’s head. The bullet exploded through his skull as Steve aimed another shot at the other, catching him in the eye. The two fell to the floor before they even knew what was happening.

“_Really, _Steve?” Billy raised an eyebrow at him. “You _knew _Ozerov was on the other side of the Gate.”

“Well, next time, why don’t _you _come up with a story on the fly?” Steve hissed at him before turning to Hopper and Joyce. “Hopper, Mrs Byers, why don’t you take their uniforms? Should stop a few people from looking twice.”

Billy turned away as the pair began stripping them of their uniforms and pulling it over their clothes. Hopper pulled off his jacket and was forced to take off his jeans to fit into the larger pants, but the other uniform was so large on Joyce that she didn’t need to bother taking off anything beyond her shoes. Hopper pulled El’s radio out of his discarded jacket and tucked it into a pocket. When they finally pulled the masks over their faces, Billy felt his anxiety ease at the passable imitations of Russian soldiers in front of him.

_Provided that they could get away from the bodies before they were noticed._

Billy gave a small nod towards the stairwell, leading the way through the door. Billy glanced over the handrail quickly to see a group of four soldiers towards the bottom, the glowing ends of cigarettes making them more visible in the dim light.

“Walk straight past them,” Steve whispered. “We all look like Russians now, remember?”

Billy tilted his head awkwardly before deciding that Steve’s plan was probably the best that they were going to get. He dispensed with stealth altogether as he led the way down, deciding that looking like he had somewhere to be was going to be his best chance. He made it as far as the floor above them before he found Russian words being spoken in his general direction.

_“Hey – where are you-”_

_“Lieutenant wants to see us,”_ Billy said curtly, not making eye contact.

_“You can’t just leave your post-”_

_“Then what are _you _doing?” _Steve cut in, raising an eyebrow pointedly at the cigarettes in their hand.

_“The lieutenant said it was urgent,” _Billy determinedly didn’t look at them as he stormed past them towards the door. _“The boys upstairs relieved us.”_

Billy had no desire to prolong the conversation, his limited Russian already stretched. He pushed open the door and let it swing shut behind him as he found himself facing the vast, gaping chasm that housed the Gate.

He felt the others come up alongside him as the deafening noise of the machine covered any conversation that was occurring in the room. The crack in the ceiling four or five floors up where the top of the Gate stretched up to the top floor of the building looked so _tiny, _so _insignificant _compared to the spectacle before them.

Steve gestured towards the back of the machine, where a series of new glass windows and metal walls had been erected between the machine and the podiums, shielding the latter off into a room very like an observation deck. Billy remembered Steve pointing out that blatant flaw in the design that if something went wrong, anyone and everyone would be in the crosshairs of a potential explosion. Ozerov had not wanted to waste time on such trivial things as safety precautions, but Billy supposed that he’d changed his mind after the critical flaw had meant that the machine could not be turned off without destroying it, giving Billy and Steve the opportunity to escape into their own world after their attempt at sabotaging it. The observation deck seemed to house scientists, while technicians and soldiers were walking around outside, eyes fixed on the Gate.

“Well, _that’s _good news,” Steve muttered dryly. “It means we won’t get blown up with the machine.”

The skeleton of the structure of what had once been a series of state-of-the-art laboratories, gutted to the shell of the building, left them with several small alcoves to duck into that shielded them slightly from sight as Hopper pulled them aside.

“Right,” Hopper’s voice was suddenly businesslike. “You have your plans; you have your objectives. Joyce, you’ve got a watch, right?”

She nodded.

“Good,” Hopper muttered. “So Joyce, you and Hargrove go and get this black box or whatever it’s called. Harrington, you’re with me to get the keys. Meet here in one hour, got it?”

“We’ll give you some time to get to the plane and find the black box hard drive before we go and find the keys,” Steve explained. “We’ll find somewhere to lay low, because I’m pretty sure the Russians are going to raise the alarm when we try to get the keys. How long do you think you’ll need?”

Billy’s expression twisted into something uncomfortable. “Maybe half an hour before you start causing mayhem here?”

Steve nodded. “Okay, Hopper, we’ll lay low for half an hour before we get the keys.”

“Can we get the keys without raising the alarm?” Hopper asked dubiously.

Steve grinned wryly. “Not exactly.”

Hopper closed his eyes in mild annoyance as he turned to Joyce and Billy. “Right, so you’ve got half an hour from now to get to the plane, get this black box and get the hell out of there before we start causing trouble here. Got it?”

Billy and Joyce nodded.

“Good luck,” Hopper muttered.

-:-

It transpired that Steve’s idea of ‘somewhere to lay low’ for the half hour that it would take Billy and Joyce to get to the plane and find the black box was a broom closet very similar to the one that Hopper and Owens had hidden in the previous morning. It was about six feet deep and four feet wide, and the addition of the vines did not add any warmth to the aesthetic.

“What did you mean when you said that getting the keys was going to raise the alarm?” Hopper finally asked in a voice barely more than a whisper.

Steve’s face twisted slightly. “Well, the good news is that they’ve got rid of the unnecessarily large safe or vault locked with a number that only Dustin would know.”

“Why do I get the feeling that there’s a ‘but’ coming?”

Steve gave a slightly guilty grin. “They may have replaced it with some armed guards in a room on the top floor.”

_Oh perfect._

“How many?” Hopper dared to ask.

Steve rubbed his hand over the back of his neck as he looked increasingly uncomfortable. “I’m not really sure… maybe ten or so?”

Hopper felt his shoulders sag as his head fell forward. _Shit._

“So it’s going to be a firefight?” he looked over at Steve, who met his eyes nervously.

“Yeah,” Steve muttered.

_Fantastic. _They were going to have to face down a team of highly trained Russian soldiers to get the keys, which would raise the alarm in the entire base and have every Russian on high alert. Hopper was painfully aware that the only reason they’d gotten as far as they had was because the Russians didn’t even know that they were there. The casual chats between the soldiers and Billy and Steve would be met with far less chatter and far more aggression.

_No wonder Steve had insisted on waiting for half an hour._

In the dim light, Hopper could see Steve looking down at his hands, rubbing at the dried blood still covering them. With no water, he didn’t seem to be making much headway at shifting Powell’s blood from them, grabbing at the edge of the sleeve of his jacket and rubbing it half-heartedly for a moment before giving up.

“Thank you,” Hopper muttered before he could stop himself.

Steve looked at him, completely confused.

“What you did for Powell,” Hopper explained. “Thank you.”

There was something in Steve’s eyes that Hopper couldn’t decipher as their eyes met. Sadness, maybe, regret, or possibly guilt. Perhaps even a mixture of all three.

“Well, I don’t know if I helped,” Steve muttered flatly. “I didn’t exactly _stop _that thing from hurting him, did I?”

Hopper couldn’t stop himself from thinking about that moment, watching Paul Harrington standing there for a heartbeat, knowing what was about to happen the second before it did, watching Powell run towards him and shove him to the ground before that _thing _tore into him. Hopper had his gun aimed at that thing, he’d gotten off a couple of shots but for all the good it had done, he may as well have thrown a pebble at it. He had been searching for something – _anything _else to do, when that taser had lit up the trees and sent the monster collapsing on top of Powell. Hopper had wanted to run towards him, to _help _– Powell was his _partner _– but much like Callahan, he had found himself held back by the presence of the _rest _of the monsters who had been after them. So he’d done the only thing left to him to help Powell – give Steve enough cover to get him out of there.

“You got him out,” Hopper said simply. “You got your dad to take him to a hospital. That’s given him a fighting chance. If he makes it, that’s because of you.”

“And if he _doesn’t?_”

Hopper understood Steve’s question. He _empathised _with it. By being the one to run forward, to help get Powell out of that situation, the kid had taken on a feeling of responsibility for what happened next. Much like with Dustin in Starcourt, the question of _‘what could he have done differently’ _would weigh on Steve’s mind unless the outcome was the best possible scenario. Would the outcome have been different if he had moved quicker? Sent Powell to Hawkins Memorial Hospital instead of the military hospital? Grabbed the taser slightly quicker? Hopper knew the questions would haunt Steve.

“You did everything you could,” Hopper explained gently. “You’re not responsible for what those _things _do. You’re not responsible for what the Russians do. You can only be responsible for _your _decisions, _your _actions and your reactions to situations that other people put you in. You’re not responsible for the situations themselves if you didn’t create them.”

Steve looked back down at his hands with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Thanks,” he muttered.

He went back to rubbing his hands absently with the corner of his sleeve, altogether failing to shift any of the dried blood.

“Do you think my dad made it?” Steve asked, his voice so quiet Hopper wondered if he’d imagined it.

“I don’t know,” Hopper muttered.

Steve didn’t lift his eyes, still looking at his hands. “He _knows_, though.”

Yes, Paul Harrington _did _know – about the Demogorgons, about Steve’s survival, about Hawkins Lab and the Department of Energy, piecing together a story that was its own upside-down version of the truth. Quite _what _Paul had thought the Department of Energy was up to and how Hopper fitted in was still a mystery, but it had been enough to influence Powell and Callahan to try and have Hopper arrested for murder and kidnapping. Paul knew _part _of the truth – and after the events of the evening, he now knew _another _part.

“You know, just about _everyone _will be surprised that I’m saying this, but don’t be too hard on your dad,” Hopper muttered. “_God _knows I don’t get on with the guy, but if there’s one thing he _has _proven over the last eight months, time and time again, is that he loves you.”

Steve finally looked up from his hands, raising a dubious eyebrow at him.

“I’m not kidding,” Hopper offered a small smile. “He turned his whole world upside down to try and make up for what happened.”

Steve’s expression was neutral as his eyes finally left Hopper’s and fell back onto his hands.

“Shame he didn’t tell me when he had the chance,” he said under his breath.

“Steve,” Hopper breathed.

Steve looked up, a deep pain there that couldn’t quite be masked by the darkness.

“Your dad knows he screwed up with you,” Hopper explained. “He won’t admit it, but he knows. I’m pretty sure he regrets all the time he didn’t spend with you – I know _I _regret all the time I didn’t spend with Sarah. He would have done _anything _for a second chance, I _know _he would have. And failing that, he threw himself into the next best thing, which was getting the justice he felt you deserved.”

“Well, he _had _his second chance,” Steve said flatly. “Instead, he tried to have us all arrested-”

“Steve – _Jesus_, I can’t believe I’m _defending _him – but… you came back from the _dead_,” Hopper explained. “It’s a lot. You broke into his house, you scared your mom, he’s had me looking for the guys who broke into his house for the last few days with vengeance on his mind, and then you show up just… _there. _It’s a lot to process – and I _know _that from personal experience. I could hardly believe it when you appeared at Joyce’s back door – hell, I almost _shot _you because I thought I was seeing things. I don’t want to imagine what it must have been like for your _dad._”

Hopper was very deliberately trying not to imagine what would happen if Sarah suddenly emerged in his life, alive after all this time. He liked to think that he wouldn’t order her immediate arrest in that eventuality, but then again, the unique circumstances surrounding Steve’s return would be extremely hard to replicate with Sarah. For one thing, there was nobody to blame – nobody _truly _to blame – for Sarah’s death, no matter how much Hopper wished that there was.

“I didn’t know he knew about the Department of Energy,” Hopper mused, as much to himself as to Steve. “I didn’t know he’d made that connection – he must have been looking into it on his own. It… Well, I can see why he hates me so much now.”

“He shouldn’t,” Steve said flatly.

“Shouldn’t he?” Hopper asked, looking down at the floor himself. “He lost you, kid. I know what that feels like. If I found out _anyone _had a part in what happened to Sarah…”

Hopper swallowed, closing his eyes. He knew that he needed to say it, _now,_ before it was too late.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Hopper looked up at Steve and met the large brown eyes looking back at him. “I never should have left you on that causeway. Hell, you never should have _been _on that causeway in the first place. And that’s on _me. _We should have taken you and Buckley back up to the surface the moment we found you. I shouldn’t have let you come along. There hasn’t been a day gone by where I don’t wonder what I could have done differently to save you – to have spared you from the _shit _that happened to you – the shit that you _never _should have had to go through.”

Steve looked so completely taken aback by the apology that he was stunned into silence.

“What happened to you wasn’t your fault,” Hopper continued. “What you did to _survive – _to come home – _whatever _you did, whatever the _cost… _that’s not on you, that’s on me. And I’m _so _sorry, kid, I’m so _sorry… _You _never _should have been in that position. You _never _should have had to go through that Gate. You _never _should have ended up in this hellscape and you sure as _hell _never should have ended up captured by these Commie bastards. What happened to you… that’s on _me. _And I’m sorry, Steve. I’m so, so sorry.”

Steve didn’t quite know what to say to that. He fell back against the wall, his eyes falling to his hands once again. His instinct was to deny it – Hopper didn’t know the half of what had happened in Russia, he didn’t know the full extent of _what _he’d just claimed was his fault, but Steve suddenly started laughing, a soft, fond chuckle filled with more love than amusement.

“You know, what you just said to me…” Steve looked back up at him, managing a smile that reached his eyes, “about situations not being my fault… I think you need to listen to your own advice, Hopper.”

Hopper’s eyebrows creased, pulling down into a frown overshadowing his eyes as he looked down. “Wouldn’t necessarily call it advice…”

“_Wisdom, _then,” Steve corrected with a small eyeroll. “I made my choice to go after that Russian, same as you. You didn’t _make _me, _nobody _made me. He was going to kill you. It was a pretty easy choice, and even knowing how it turned out… I’m pretty sure I’d make the same choice again.”

Hopper found himself smiling at the ground fondly. “You know, a part of me wishes I could say I was surprised by that…”

Steve gave another soft laugh. “I mean, I might have made a few different choices along the way, but…”

Hopper joined the laughter, his chest rising and falling but barely a sound leaving his lips as he grinned at Steve.

“You know, Harrington…” Hopper said softly. “The world needs more people like you.”

Steve swallowed uncomfortably. His eyes fell down to floor once more as Hopper looked away. It did not come naturally to Hopper to be _quite _so expressive, and almost immediately he found himself running over the conversation in his head, wondering if there was a better way to say what needed to be said. Fortunately, however, Steve didn’t seem to want to dwell on the moment, scuffing his shoe against the floor as the moment passed. Steve seemed to be just as lost in thought as Hopper, but Hopper noticed the thoughtful frown on Steve’s face deepening as it slowly pulled him out of his own reverie.

“What is it?”

“Just thinking,” Steve muttered. “I… I think there might be a way to get the jump on the firefight…”

Hopper frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

Steve twisted his face into an uncomfortable grimace. “I’ve… I’ve had an idea…”

Hopper felt his eyebrows shoot up as a twist of trepidation shot through his gut. “Am I going to like it as much as your _last _idea?”

Steve’s eyebrows pulled together and upwards as he gave him an uncomfortable grin. “That depends…” he said slowly. “You know those soldiers we shot?”

Hopper didn’t _quite _know what he was expecting but he felt every single crease in his face flatten in the blank look of horror – though notably not _surprise _– at where Steve had gone with this.

“Well…” Steve tried for a nervous grin. “Do you think they’ve been found yet?”

-:-

Getting hold of a car proved relatively easy for Billy – the Russians had made the fatal error of leaving the keys in the ignition, which was perhaps not _quite _as stupid a move as Billy thought, given that the Russians were yet to have any reason for there being anyone around to steal it. He’d waltzed out of the Lab and into the parking lot to find his choice of off-road vehicles.

The car drive itself was decidedly awkward. He could feel Joyce Byers’ tension coming off her in waves. Everything, from the stiffness in her shoulders to the way she held herself, slightly leaning away from him, told Billy that he did not quite have her trust, which was not something that they could afford.

Billy had a vague memory of the exact location of the field that the Russians had landed in. While Steve had been listlessly staring into space, Billy had tracked a path in his head that gave him the barest sense of direction. The heavy traffic – or at least, the _traffic_ – had left the necessary roads clear of vines, which was the biggest indicator by some margin of where he needed to go – it was _all _he needed.

Billy floored the gas pedal and sped away into the darkness, the perpetually overcast sky above them flashing occasionally with the oncoming storm. He glanced over at Joyce, who was still holding her shoulders far too deliberately, demonstrating an acute awareness of every part of her body.

“What does this black box thing look like?” Billy finally broke the silence.

Joyce didn’t ease her posture in the slightest. She looked over at him, holding her head in place very deliberately.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think Bob said it’s always a bright colour.”

Billy snorted derisively. Joyce shot him a strange look.

“If it’s a bright colour, why do they call it a _black _box?” he shook his head dubiously.

Joyce rolled her eyes. “It’s a nickname, I think. It’s got a technical name, but I can’t remember what it is. They’re brightly coloured so they’re easier to find in a crash.”

Billy tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Makes sense, I guess,” he muttered.

They fell back into silence as he pulled the car out into a winding road. The vines here crept up towards the very edge of the road, clinging to the banks on either side of the ditches as it wound its way through the nightmarish forest but stopping just on the edge of the asphalt. Billy floored the accelerator as the engine roared into life, the ride increasingly bumpy as the suspension on the car was pushed to its albeit disappointing limit.

“So who’s this Bob guy?” Billy asked over the loud engine.

If possible, Joyce tensed even more. Her eyes closed, perhaps at the callousness with which Billy had thrown the question out.

“Bob Newby,” she muttered quietly. “He was… he was my boyfriend…”

Realisation suddenly crystallised in Billy’s mind. The strange events that had come to light in the weeks after Billy had quite successfully taken King Steve’s crown for himself suddenly fitted into everything. He had heard about the mysterious death of the Radio Shack employee. Tommy Hagan had spent three days solid theorising about whether Joyce Byers had killed him before Billy had finally told him in no uncertain terms that he didn’t care, that he was bored of listening to moronic conspiracy theories and that if he had to listen to one more minute of stupid ramblings, Billy was going to recreate the abstract artwork that Steve’s face had been using Tommy as a canvas.

“I’m sorry,” Billy muttered. “I didn’t know.”

She shook her head slightly, still holding herself in that same tense way, but managed to give him an unreadable look. “He saved Will,” she muttered. “I never got to thank him.”

Billy didn’t quite know what to say to that. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the roar of the engine that didn’t know how to purr. Not for the first time, Billy missed his Camaro.

Joyce still held herself in the same tense way, but now she was watching Billy whenever she thought he wasn’t looking. Billy managed four hastily averted glances from her before he got bored of it.

“Go on,” he finally prompted. “What is it?”

She looked over at him with confusion in her eyes. There was a shadow of doubt at his exasperated tone, uncertain of what exactly he was asking.

“What is it about me that’s got you so on edge?” Billy sighed.

She didn’t relax, instead looking more alarmed. “I didn’t say anything about you,” she muttered.

“You didn’t have to,” Billy rolled his eyes as he turned a corner. “So go on. Is it the whole _Mind Controller monster _thing?”

“It’s the Mind Flayer,” she corrected softly.

“Yeah, I’m not calling it that,” Billy deadpanned. “So is that it? Are you still not sure it’s out of me?”

She looked at him, a worried fear in her eyes that couldn’t quite be shaken.

“Or is it older than that?” Billy asked shrewdly.

The silence was a more ringing endorsement than anything Billy needed.

“It _is, _isn’t it?” Billy said triumphantly. “You don’t like who I used to be-”

“You put him in hospital,” Joyce said quietly, the lack of volume by no means detracting from the fierceness in her voice.

_And there it was. _For all Steve had said about leaving that behind him, about it being so far in the past that he couldn’t even _think _about it anymore, his friends did not seem to possess that same luxury. To them, Billy was still _the person that put Steve in the hospital. The person who threatened Lucas Sinclair. The monster that got off its leash in a night of violence. _Even after all this time, he couldn’t shake that reputation.

“I did,” Billy realised that she was waiting for him to speak. “I did. But I’ve apologised to him. I’ve left that person behind – I – I _think _I’ve left that person behind…”

She turned to look at him, a look of quiet scrutiny that matched exactly the one Billy had seen on her eldest son so many times before. He felt hot under the collar, as though the clothes were not quite enough to hide the parts of himself that he didn’t know were still there.

“You know I’d do _anything _for him now,” he muttered. “No matter what, I’d do anything for him.”

“I know,” she muttered, managing the first genuine smile. “I can see that.”

Billy raised an eyebrow as he looked back at her. “The problem is, _he’d _do anything for _me_, now, too,” he grumbled. “It’s been a real pain in the ass trying to keep him in check.”

Joyce gave a soft laugh at that. There was a fond sadness in her eyes, and Billy could tell she was thinking about how their venture would end. She had no way of knowing what Steve and Billy had agreed, but it wasn’t quite such a leap of logic that she might have failed to guess.

Billy wasn’t wrong in his assumption, but it wasn’t solely the impending end on her mind. She couldn’t shake from her mind the memory of how this had started – those fateful moments where Steve had told Joyce and Robin to stay in the observation deck overlooking the machine while he went to help Hopper. She couldn’t shake how she had altogether failed to stop him – how she hadn’t even _tried _– the words that Hopper had told her that he’d said on the causeway when it became apparent that he was not going to make it out of that explosion safely.

“He’d do anything for anyone,” Joyce muttered.

Billy looked over at her, frowning slightly as she closed her eyes. He saw the tension in her shoulders intensify as her breathing became increasingly deliberate, as though each action for each breath required a conscious effort.

“Look after him,” she finally said, opening her eyes and looking at him with a seriousness that was altogether unfamiliar. It was caring but demanding, unquestionable and unyielding, a request would not be denied. “I know I can’t convince him to change his mind, so look after him.”

The seriousness of what Joyce Byers was asking of him was not lost on Billy, nor was the seriousness that she felt the request merited. He felt humbled that she was asking this of him and more than a little uncomfortable as she seemed to look right through him, seeing parts of himself that he had fought to keep hidden.

“I will,” he answered, matching her tone.

Billy finally pulled the car up a dirt track that he only noticed due to the sudden plague of vines on the road ahead. The track itself was rough and severely lacking maintenance, leading Billy to presume that it had only come into existence on _this _side of the Gate and lacked a parallel in the _real _world. It carved through the forest, hulking silhouettes of skeletal trees framing their path. The track wound into the forest, the occasional tree that had needed to be cleared for convenience’s sake lying uprooted by the side of the track, as though tossed away with no real care.

At the sight of a crack in the trees, Billy pulled the car over to one side of the track and looked over at Joyce.

“This isn’t it,” Joyce pointed out.

Billy didn’t bother answering as he put the car in park and turned off the engine.

“How long do we have?” he asked.

She still looked confused but fortunately didn’t question Billy any further as she glanced at her watch.

“It’s been about ten minutes,” she answered, looking increasingly confused.

Billy couldn’t help but feel a wave of smugness at the fact that he had done the trip in less than half the time it had taken the Russians. It turned out that ignoring the speed limits did have its uses, after all.

“Billy, what are we-”

“We _could _drive into the middle of an airfield and try and come up with some bullshit story about how we were needed there, but I feel we’ve tried our luck with that a _little _too much,” Billy finally explained with a roll of his eyes. “So I’m thinking we _walk _the rest of the way, see what we’re up against, and _then _work out how we’re going to get this brightly coloured black box.”

He didn’t bother waiting for her to answer, opening the car door and stepping out into the dirt. Joyce followed shortly as he started slipping through the trees, finding himself getting annoyed at her complete lack of stealth. This was not to say that she was especially loud – she was certainly quieter than Chief Hopper most of the time – but at least Chief Hopper knew _how _to shut up. Joyce Byers was altogether failing at dodging the patches of dirt that shifted beneath her feet. When she had to dodge a vine and ended up stumbling, Billy finally gave in to the urge to roll his eyes.

Nobody came out to investigate as Billy slipped down the track, his eyes focused on the gap in the trees in front of him – he dimly wondered _why _there was no sign of anyone – why they were yet to come out and investigate the two people who seemed to have decided to simply _walk _towards the airfield with little to no degree of stealth – but it became immediately apparent why as Billy made it to the edge of the trees.

The airfield before them was completely deserted. It was not the same airfield that was being used by the larger planes – it was by no degree large enough – but it remained an airfield, and that was all Billy needed. Three planes were standing there, small cargo planes that were designed to carry the weekly food packages. The possibility that in the stretching of the Russian resources between the Kamchatka base and the two versions of Hawkins Laboratory, the Russians had altogether abandoned the idea of security in the far-flung reaches of this hellscape on account of the Russians controlling both entrances, but Billy would not allow himself to take that as fact. He had played far too many mind games with the Russians for that.

“Stay low, keep quiet,” Billy whispered. “We go to the nearest one, find this black box and then we get out of here.”

Joyce nodded. Billy held up three fingers and counted down. He ducked down, keeping low as he slipped towards the nearest plane. He saw door to the plane and ran towards it, yanking down the silver handle and tugging at it –

It was perhaps a fraction too much to hope for that the Russians had left their plane unlocked. The door handle rattled as Billy continued to swing it before slamming his hand against the door window in annoyance.

“We need to break in, don’t we?” Joyce raised an eyebrow.

“Unless you’ve got a key somewhere in that uniform of yours, yeah,” Billy huffed.

“Do you know _how?_”

“Funnily enough, breaking into planes is a little outside my wheelhouse,” Billy deadpanned.

“You ever… I don’t know, break into a _car _or something?”

Billy looked at her incredulously.

“You weren’t exactly known for following the rules,” Joyce shrugged defensively.

“I graffitied the back of the library and got high with Tommy H at the Quarry,” Billy hit back. “Grand Theft Auto wasn’t my thing. I had the best car in Hawkins, anyway.”

Joyce sighed as she looked around, her eyes squinting at the ground in the dark.

“We could smash the window?” Joyce suggested. “Try and open it from the inside?”

Billy thought on the idea for a moment, trying to find the flaw in the plan. It wasn’t the _most _ridiculous idea he’d heard, but something felt _off_, like he was _missing _something… It almost felt too _easy…_

But the longer Joyce looked at him, the more he realised that his instinctive reluctance was reaching a level of paranoia that was going to put them in more danger than simply _doing _something. His final objection faded away into a shrug as he pulled off his jacket and wrapped the material around his fist, before swinging his arm, throwing his whole body behind the punch at the window –

Only to be met with solid, unyielding glass.

He tried again, harder.

Still nothing. The glass required by aeroplanes was evidently strong enough to withstand someone trying to break their way in using their fists.

“Maybe we should try finding a rock?” Joyce suggested, looking around. She started scouring the dirt for something appropriate, but Billy suspected that she wouldn’t find anything in the field itself. It would be a hazard to leave a rock or a stone capable of taking out a window in the middle of an airfield.

Her words _did, _however, inspire an idea in Billy.

He pulled out his gun with his left hand and pressed the barrel up against the glass. He felt a wave of hesitation – the chances of someone _not _hearing a gunshot, even as far away from the Lab as they were – were slim. They hadn’t properly looked around – there was still a chance that someone was nearby – but his options were limited.

He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot was only eclipsed by the wailing alarm that went off at the gunshot. It was like a car alarm, but louder – _much _louder – _Billy needed to turn it off –_

Joyce came running back over, not having made it very far away in the first place, as he made another attempt at punching the glass, his fist still wrapped in the jacket. This time, he succeeded in making the glass give way. He reached a hand inside through the broken window and started trying to find the door handle inside the plane.

When his hands lighted on the metal handle, once again, he found it completely locked.

“I still can’t open it,” Billy huffed, completely abandoning any attempt at keeping quiet – anyone for miles around would be able to hear the klaxon, Billy shouting over it at Joyce was not going to make a difference.

“Let me try,” Joyce nudged him to one side as she reached through the smashed window.

Billy stumbled out of the way with his hands raised in surrender, but she evidently found something that Billy had altogether failed to find. The door swung open, revealing a large locking mechanism on the inside that could easily be manually operated. She gave him a grin that on anyone else would look disgustingly smug, but somehow on her simply looked satisfied. Billy gave her a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes as he pushed his way into the cockpit.

“Try and find something to turn off the alarm,” he instructed as he began looking around, his eyes searching over the panel of buttons on the console.

She took one look at the sea of buttons in front of her with a dubious expression on her face before stepping up, inspecting the labels on the buttons.

“I can’t read _any _of this,” she pointed out at the Cyrillic text labelling what button did what.

Billy looked over at her, any pretence of hiding the annoyance he felt evaporating with the continued wailing of the alarm – _which he would very much like to shut up now, thank you very much – _he objectively knew it wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t disguise the annoyance as he huffed, turning around and scanning the button before glancing around the rest of the cockpit for anything that might indicate how to _shut_ _the fucking alarm up_ –

His search was almost immediately abandoned at the diagram he saw on the wall at the back of the cockpit.

It was a metal plaque, aluminium bolted onto the plane wall, with a basic diagram of the plane. The text was all in Cyrillic, much like the text on the console. He scanned over it, trying to remember the meanings of them all as he read it as much as possible before his eyes lit up at the label on an arrow pointing towards a hatch at the back of the plane.

_Digital Flight Data_

“That’s it,” Billy grinned as he sprinted out of the plane and towards the tail. _Now that he knew what he was looking for, he knew where he could find it –_

_Yes!_

There was a hatch labelled with the first three letters of the Russian words for digital flight data spray painted in white on the exterior of the plane. He tried to find a way to open the hatch, but there was no handle, _nothing –_

“Hey!” he called out. “Find me a button for this hatch, will you?”

Joyce looked mildly indignant about being referred to with little more than a _‘hey’, _but evidently felt that with the alarm still blaring, there were more important things to worry about.

“What am I looking for?” she asked, hurrying over towards where Billy was still trying to get his fingers between the metal panels.

“Something – probably labelled with these three letters – actually, you stay here, it’ll probably be faster-”

He sprinted back inside the cockpit, scanning the buttons frantically – the Cyrillic was blurring into itself as he scanned over the button, looking for what looked like a squared off U, a little chair and a rectangle with the bottom missing –

_ЦДП_

He didn’t hesitate to slam his hand down on the button. A surprised shout from outside the plane was his reward as he sprinted towards the door, leaning out –

“_I got it!_” Joyce cried as she emerged from behind the open hatch, clutching a bright orange metal box.

Billy broke into a grin behind his mask that faded almost immediately at the sight behind her shoulder.

A car was driving out into the field, coming from the same track that they’d come from.

“Shit,” Billy hissed. “Shit – we’ve got to go-”

The car was speeding towards them as they ducked around the plane under the nose and sprinted out the other side. Billy knew they stood no chance of talking their way out of the situation – they had been seen standing by the plane with an alarm blaring; anyone with half a brain cell would appreciate that this fact was deeply suspicious. Billy reached into his pocket and pulled out the car keys, pressing them into Joyce’s hand as he grabbed it and dragged her sideways, away from the car.

“Get to the trees,” he hissed. Once you’re in cover, double back around and get to the car. I’ll meet you there.”

“What are you going to do-”

“Just _trust me, _okay?” Billy hissed, grabbing his gun again and checking the clip. _Five bullets._

That _might _be enough.

He slowed his sprint alongside Joyce and let her pull ahead as he glanced over his shoulder back at the car that was bearing down on them.

“Go – _Go!_” Billy glimpsed Joyce hesitating in his periphery – _she couldn’t stop – _“Get that box to the others!”

He spun around and faced the car bearing down on them – it was fifty feet away – forty – _thirty _–

_BANG!_

The first gunshot that flew from Billy’s gun smashed into the windscreen of the oncoming car but did nothing to slow the vehicle. Instead, all it did was alert the occupants. that Billy was within shooting distance as he saw a gun appear out of one of the windows.

Billy sprinted out of the way as three bullets were aimed in his general direction, but luck was once again on his side as the car’s complete lack of suspension threw off the shooter’s aim. Billy glanced over his shoulder – the car was still coming for him, veering sideways as it aimed at him –

Twenty feet away – fifteen – ten –

Billy spun around and aimed a shot at the front wheel –

The tire burst with a bang, the car veering off-balance as the driver slammed on the brakes. Billy sprinted towards it, alongside it, hoping to get past it – if he could make it, he’d have a clear run to the track where the car was –

The driver swung open the door as Billy passed. Billy dodged out of the way as the driver leapt out of the vehicle. He ducked sideways as he heard a gunshot explode behind him –

He dodged around the back of the car as he heard the passenger door open. He knew he only had seconds before he’d be caught –

He swung around and aimed a single shot at the passenger – he saw the bullet smack into the man’s stomach – the man crumpled as he ducked around the side where the passenger was – _the driver was still there – _Billy was painfully conscious that there were only two bullets left in his gun – he _had _to make them count –

He swung around towards the back of the car as he glimpsed a gun – _he ducked_ –

Three bullets exploded over his head as he dropped and rolled away from the car. If he’d counted right, that meant that the driver was out – _this was his chance to get away –_

He aimed a single shot at the driver, not bothering to check whether it had hit as he sprinted away – he dimly registered the smashing of glass – he sprinted towards the trees, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the driver as possible while the driver was reloading –

He dared to cast a glance around for Joyce but couldn’t see any sign of her – _he could only hope that she’d made it –_

He froze in horror as a second car burst out of the trees from the track he was sprinting towards – he veered sideways slightly in the face of the headlights – the car swung around alongside him – _he had one bullet left _– he aimed it straight at the driver –

“_Hey!_” a slightly nasal female voice cried. “Get in!”

Billy’s hesitation was cut off by another bullet exploding behind him – the driver of the other car had evidently reloaded – the passenger door to the car in front of him was flung open, revealing Joyce Byers at the wheel as Billy broke into a broad grin, pulling himself up next to her. She sped away with more efficiency than Billy thought she was capable of as Billy rolled down the window and aimed a shot behind them at the other driver. The driver jumped out of the way as the bullet landed in the dirt. Billy saw him slow to a halt as he became an increasingly tiny figure in the wing mirror as Joyce floored the gas and sped onto the track.

“You got it?” Billy asked breathlessly, looking over at her as his heart rate slowly began returning to normal.

He saw the muscles around her eyes tighten above her mask as she grinned at him from the driver’s seat. “I got it.”

-:-

“Kid, are you _sure _this is going to work?”

“Not even slightly,” Steve grunted. “But I’ve not been sure of _anything _in over two years, so what’s new there?”

Hopper gave him a weak glare over the fabric covering the lower half of his face. “You’re not exactly inspiring confidence here, Harrington…”

“It’ll do _something, _just-” Steve broke off as he readjusted his grip on what they were carrying between them. “Just be ready to improvise.”

Hopper grunted as he finally made it down the last of the stairs. “You do a _lot _of improvising?”

Steve gave him a sheepish look behind the mask. Hopper tried to resist the urge to roll his eyes as he readjusted his own grip.

“I don’t understand why we had to go for the biggest one,” Hopper grumbled.

“I told you,” Steve muttered. “The other wouldn’t fit into it.”

Steve pushed the door open with his foot slightly, glancing out into the corridor beyond. At the mercifully deserted corridor, he nodded at Hopper and the pair awkwardly moved into the hallway.

“They’re keeping the keys in a room off the corridor just down there,” Steve whispered. “Around that corner. We can do it in the corridor just outside.”

“Let’s just hope nobody comes out while we’re setting up,” Hopper muttered under his breath.

They awkwardly shuffled as quietly as they could towards the end of the corridor. Steve glanced around the corner, relieved at the deserted corridor beyond. In the low light, he could dimly make out the door to the room where they were keeping the keys, guarded by more soldiers than either he or Hopper were comfortable with. Hence the plan that had left Hopper looking at Steve as though he’d just realised that Steve had had a full-frontal lobotomy while he’d been gone. In Steve’s defence, it _definitely _capitalised on their chief advantage of surprise.

Steve nodded at Hopper, wondering vaguely _where _the rest of the Russians had evaporated to. It felt to Steve like they _definitely _should have encountered more soldiers in their journey through the Lab – not that Steve was _complaining, _exactly. It would have taken a certain amount of explanation to talk his way out of being spotted in the compromising position that he and Hopper were in.

Steve led the way, keeping as quiet as possible as he and Hopper carried the corpse of the larger of the two Russian soldiers that Steve and Billy had shot, newly dressed in Hopper’s jeans and jacket. They laid it out on the floor, spreading the arms awkwardly into what was a passable imitation of a position someone might fall to after being shot in the head.

“For the record, this is completely crazy, it’s never going to work,” Hopper breathed. “They’re never going to buy that this guy just died-”

“They don’t _need _to buy it for long, just long enough that a few of them will come out,” Steve breathed back as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a pipe before handing it to Hopper. “Now get in position and let _me _do the talking.”

“And _how _many again?”

“At least four,” Steve nodded as he started backing up down the corridor. Hopper slipped down the corridor in the opposite direction and pressed himself against the wall just beyond the door, trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible.

Hopper gave Steve the slightest nod as Steve drew out his gun and aimed it at the ceiling.

“_Stop! Podozhdite!_” Steve shouted before firing a single bullet.

The sound of the gunshot did what the shout would not. There were noises from inside the room before the door swung open and someone emerged as Steve ran up to the corpse.

“_What happened?_” came a voice in Russian as someone emerged from the room.

_One._

Steve bent down over the corpse as a Russian soldier approached.

“_He infiltrated the base,_” Steve said breathlessly as he knelt down. “_I saw him coming up here, he wouldn’t stop – I think he was after the keys-_”

Understanding blossomed in the Russian soldier’s eyes as he looked at Steve. “_You did well, comrade,_” the soldier said, his eyes creasing in what was evidently meant to be a reassuring smile. “_Was anyone with him?_”

Steve had not thought _quite_ that far ahead. “_I don’t know, I didn’t see – he came from that way-_”

Steve gestured behind him away from Hopper as the soldier looked up, glimpsing Hopper’s increasingly unamused expression.

“_It’s fine, comrade, come with me – we will look together,_” the soldier met. “_Did you track him from America?_”

Steve desperately tried to conceal a flicker of alarm that crossed his face, thanking God for the mask covering his nose and mouth. “_What?_”

“_Your uniform,_” the soldier gestured to the all-black uniform. “_You are part of the covert operations, no?_”

Steve desperately tried to cover his mistake, his hastily invented story collapsing around his ears. “_Oh – yes, of course – he is one of the Americans – I think he is working with _them_…_”

The soldier nodded. “_Well, it is a good thing you found this one,_” he patted Steve’s arm reassuringly. “_There was a disturbance at one of the airfields a short while ago. It must have been a distraction – we should find any others around the base before they make it any further – SERGEI!_”

The shout drew another soldier out of the room, who stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the body.

_Two._

“_What’s going on?_” the soldier called Sergei asked.

“_We have been infiltrated,_” the first soldier said simply. “_Guard this one – he might have friends-_”

The first soldier stood up as Sergei looked down at the body, getting his first clear view of the corpse’s face –

“_MAXIM!_” Sergei suddenly shouted. “_No – no – Maxim-_”

The first soldier looked down at the body as Sergei had dropped down beside it, taking in the man’s face – Sergei’s obvious distress – the soldier’s eyes swivelled back to Steve to regard him with a certain degree of suspicion –

“_What’s going on – who are-_”

A gunshot slammed into the first soldier’s back as Hopper finally pulled himself out. Sergei suddenly drew his gun, spinning around, looking between Steve and Hopper as the first soldier crumpled.

“_Help!_” Sergei yelled.

Steve aimed a shot at Sergei as three more soldiers ran out of the room.

_Three, four, five!_

Hopper leapt into action, slamming the door behind them and shoving the pipe in his hand under the door handle, lodging it in place so any attempt at turning the handle remained largely unsuccessful.

Steve fired a single shot at the first person to step out of the door as Hopper leapt forward. The bullet caught the man in the head, sending him collapsing to the floor. The second gunshot Steve fired was _not _quite so efficient. The remaining two soldiers, anticipating this, ducked out of the way. One aimed the gun at Hopper –

Steve dived forwards, pushing Hopper out of the way just in time for the bullet to sink into the concrete behind them. Hopper recovered a moment later, swinging his revolver up to fire three shots at the man who had just shot him. They caught the man in the chest, sending him crumpling to the floor.

The final man started backing up down the corridor hesitantly. Steve fired a shot at him, but he ducked. The soldier aimed a few shots back – Hopper pushed Steve to the ground as the bullets smashed into concrete above their heads as the soldier sprinted up the corridor – Steve pushed himself to his feet and aimed another shot at his retreating back. The soldier ducked – _he was going to make it to the end of the corridor – he couldn’t get away –_

Steve pushed himself to his feet as the man disappeared around the corner – Steve started to sprint after him –

“Steve, _leave it!_” Hopper hissed as he grabbed Steve’s arm.

“He’ll raise the alarm-”

“Alarm’s already been raised, kid,” Hopper muttered. “We need to get those keys before we’ve got a whole army here.”

Steve nodded slightly as he checked his clip – _he was out._

“You good?” Hopper asked.

Steve grabbed the clip he’d put in his holster and reloaded before nodding at Hopper. Steve pressed himself on one side of the door, gun in hand, while Hopper raised three fingers from the other side.

_Three – two – one –_

Hopper kicked the pipe away and the door between them burst open.

-:-

Billy was impressed with Joyce as she pulled the car into the parking lot at some speed, slamming on the brakes and throwing the car into park without bothering to park it neatly. She’d definitely adopted his policy of speed over safety, making the drive back from the makeshift airfield in only a few more minutes than Billy had made it there.

“You got the box?” Billy asked her.

She nodded as she opened the door. She and Billy jumped out of the car and sprinted up to the door of the Lab – it had been left unguarded – _small mercies _– he sprinted into the foyer of the Lab with Joyce right behind him. He burst through the door and across the foyer –

He froze at the tell-tale click of a gun being cocked behind him.

His hand flew to the holster at his side, drawing his gun, a wave of relief that he’d remembered to reload while they were in the car. He spun around to face a line of soldiers, guns drawn and aiming directly at them. As the tense standoff continued, Billy glimpsed in his periphery several other soldiers begin to join, bringing the number to at least thirty soldiers covering every entrance with what Billy could only describe as completely unnecessary overkill for apprehending two prisoners.

“_Lower your weapon!_” one of the soldiers barked in Russian.

“_What’s going on?_” Billy asked guardedly, making no move to put the gun down on the floor.

“_We know you are not soldiers,_” the soldier barked back. “_Put the weapon down and tell us who you are!_”

“_You will not be able to escape,_” another soldier jumped in at Billy’s increasing hesitance. “_We have you surrounded._”

Billy paused for another moment before slowly lowering the gun.

“_Kick it over here,_” the first soldier ordered. “_Put your hands in the air – slowly._”

Billy felt a twinge of regret that the mask and hood over his face was covering the worst of the glare he was shooting at them while he complied. The soldier kicked the gun to one side, not taking his eyes from Billy.

“_Who are you?_” the soldier barked.

Billy decided to throw caution to the wind. The chances of them walking away with their lives were slim to none.

“_Billy Hargrove,_” he growled. “_I’m the reason you’re here._”

The simple effect those words had on the soldiers was astounding. Their eyes widened, a murmur passed through the soldiers assembled.

“_I would think very carefully about what you do to me,_” Billy continued. “_I don’t think your Comrade General would like it very much if you killed me._”

The soldier laughed humourlessly. “_You do not know our orders, American._”

Billy _really _didn’t like the sound of that.

“_Well, you seem to have missed an important point,_” Billy shrugged, trying desperately to sound casual in spite of his heart rate almost doubling in the span of a very short time. “_I’m here with my friend, who is more feminine than you might remember._”

The soldier raised a single, unimpressed eyebrow.

“_What is your point?_” the soldier deadpanned.

“_My point is,_” Billy grinned behind the mask and allowed a hint of it to slip into his voice. “_If _I’m _here… where do you think _he _is?_”

The first flicker of alarm crossed the soldier’s face at Billy’s words, no need to question who _‘he’_ was. He grabbed the radio on his belt, switching it on and speaking into it.

“_All units: look out for the American. He may be in the building._”

There was a brief blare of static from the radio before a sarcastic voice burst out of the speaker.

_“Thank you for that update. Would you help us protect the keys from them?”_

The words catalysed the reaction that Billy had been hoping for in the soldiers surrounding them. The soldier looked alarmed as he gestured towards the group that was closest to the stairs, crossing the foyer determinedly, breaking into a run.

“_Go!_” the soldier barked at them as he gestured towards the stairwell. “_Find them!_”

The soldiers started sprinting towards the stairwell. Billy didn’t make his move just then – there were still too many guns trained on them – he wanted a _few _more out of the room – one of the soldiers by the door hesitated.

“_Sir, what should we do about-_”

“_Shoot them and come with us,_” the first soldier barked.

The second soldier hesitated for a moment longer, shooting a dubious look at the first before raising a gun at Billy –

_NOW!_

He shoved Joyce to the floor as the bullet finally exploded above his head. Billy pushed himself up, charging for the abandoned gun he’d kicked away – his fingers closed around the barrel as the soldier realised what was going on –

Billy spun around and fired a shot at the soldier who had tried to shoot them. He heard a shout from the soldiers heading towards the stairwell –

Billy glimpsed an opening in the ring of soldiers to one side – _there was a door just beyond –_

Billy grabbed Joyce’s arm and pulled her up as he aimed a shot ahead of him. He didn’t bother checking to see if it had hit – a soldier dived out of the way, giving them an opening –

A gunshot went off behind them – he shoved Joyce’s head down as he ducked but kept running, shoving her in front of him. He pushed her at the door, aiming three shots behind him as they burst through the door and down the corridor.

-:-

Steve leapt out of the way of the door as it burst open with such force it bounced off the wall. Two soldiers burst out of the room, guns swinging into the corridor, noticing a split second too late that Hopper was standing against the wall. That crucial split second was all that Hopper needed to fire off a shot as Steve regained his footing in time for the second soldier to swing the gun around towards him.

The split-second advantage was enough for Steve to fire off two shots at the Russian, who crumpled under the bullets that caught him in the arm and chest at point blank range. Steve heard a gunshot go off inside the room they were trying to infiltrate, sending Hopper pressing himself against the wall for a moment.

“How many?” Steve hissed.

“Four,” Hopper gasped.

Steve nodded before spinning around into the room, aiming a shot in the general direction of the room. It gave Hopper enough cover to duck into the room slightly more effectively, firing off another shot and catching the closest soldier in the head. Steve ducked into the room behind him as Hopper ducked slightly to avoid two bullets aimed at his head. Steve fired off another shot, catching one in the shoulder and sending him staggering back.

It was all Hopper needed to stand up straight and aim three shots at the next nearest one, each one a kill shot that smacked into the man’s chest. Steve ducked out from behind and aimed two shots at the soldier right behind, one bullet catching the man in the stomach and chest and leaving him on the ground, gasping for air –

Steve suddenly felt himself getting pushed aside as the soldier Steve had caught in the shoulder regained his footing, a gunshot sailing through the air and shattering the concrete behind him. Hopper found his aim and, with more marksmanship than Steve was capable of, sent a bullet straight through his heart.

The air was at last still, leaving them to take in the surroundings properly.

“That had no right to work as well as it did,” Hopper growled under his breath.

Steve ignored him, glancing around the room. The room was largely bare, with a few chairs scattered around, but one of the soldiers had a metal briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Steve started looking around for a key to the handcuffs, searching one of the soldier’s pockets –

Before stopping almost immediately as Hopper simply pulled out a knife and pried open the briefcase, pulling the two keys out and pocketing them.

Steve tilted his head slightly at the move, frowning as he stood up. Any questions or comments he may have had, however, died on his lips as they heard a dim rumble beneath them.

“I think that might be company,” Steve muttered.

“Let’s go,” Hopper agreed.

They sprinted out of the room and down the corridor back towards the stairwell. Steve burst through the door, skidding to a halt at the top of the stairs and glancing over the railing –

“_There!_”

The shout in Russian was almost immediately followed by gunshots aimed up at him. He swung back, helped in no small part by Hopper grabbing the back of his jacket and all but throwing him back through the door.

“West stairwell,” was all Hopper gasped as they took off again. Steve didn’t miss the way he subtly pressed a hand to his side –

The thunder of footsteps beneath them grew louder as they sprinted down the labyrinth of corridors. The distant sound of gunshots echoed somewhere below them – _several floors below them –_

“Billy,” Steve gasped.

It was all the motivation he needed to push himself towards the end of the corridor, bursting through the door to the west stairwell. Hopper followed suit – Steve turned to slam the door shut – _he glimpsed figures at the other end of the hallway –_

Hopper practically dragged him down the – _for now _– deserted stairwell. He could hear shouts behind them – _above – below – _phantom voices yelling as they ran towards the sound of gunshots that signalled the location of Billy and Joyce –

The door above them burst open and Steve heard another shout followed by the sound of gunshots. He didn’t break his stride, taking the steps two at a time before bursting through the door at the bottom. It led to a corridor – Steve barely had time to register Hopper on his tail, the pair sprinting towards the door at the end of the corridor –

Something suddenly appeared in front of Steve, bursting around a corner – a black mass that Steve only avoided crashing into by Hopper grabbing the back of his jacket and throwing him backwards behind him, gun raised at two figures –

“Jesus, watch where you’re pointing that thing!” came a growl from underneath the black hood.

Steve felt himself break into a smile at the growl. “You guys are okay,” he breathed, relief tangible in every syllable.

“Not for long,” Billy gasped, grabbing Steve’s arm and pulling him down the corridor. “We’ve got half the base on our tail.”

Steve gave a noncommittal tilt of the head. “Well, we’ve got the other half.”

The four of them sprinted down the corridor as the noises from the stairwell grew louder. The noise behind them was only added by the sounds of shouts from beyond the corridor where Billy and Joyce had emerged. There was a double door at the far end of the corridor – _the machine was just beyond that…_

The four of them burst through the doors and into the cavernous room, several storeys gutted to create space for the machine and the Gate. Unlike before, the skeleton guard was now on high alert, guns raised in their general direction.

Steve shoved Billy down as bullets exploded over their heads. He saw Hopper push Joyce to the ground as Billy fired two rounds in the direction of the nearest one. Steve checked his clip, replacing it on the confirmation that it was empty.

Hopper pushed Joyce sideways as Steve scrambled to his feet, freshly reloaded gun in hand, aiming another shot at the soldier. Hopper was pushing towards the newly erected observation deck, taking the cover that Billy and Steve were providing.

The noise behind them was largely drowned out by the noise coming from the machine, but it was starting to make itself heard. Steve aimed a shot at a guard running towards him – he saw him crumple as Hopper made it to the glass door to the side of the observation deck –

He swung it open and the four of them piled in. Steve found a bolt on the inside of the door and turned it, leaving the last of the guards outside, hands slamming against the glass as their shouts were muffled.

Billy went to a door on the other side of the observation deck while Hopper checked the final set of double doors at the back of the room that led to the rest of the Lab. The room was empty, any scientists clearly evacuated at the threat that they posed.

“All sealed,” Billy muttered as he turned back to the room. “You guys get the keys?”

“Hopper has them,” Steve answered breathlessly. “You guys have any luck?”

Joyce held up the thing in her hand –

“I thought you said it was a _black _box?” Hopper frowned at it.

“They paint it orange so it’s visible in a crash,” Joyce explained with a roll of her eyes.

“Right,” Steve shrugged – there were more important things. “Hopper, give us the keys – if you go now, you might make it.”

Hopper dug around in his pocket, trying to find the keys –

_BANG!_

Steve wheeled around as he saw that one of the soldiers that formed the skeleton guard had gotten hold of a fire extinguisher that seemed to be entirely ornamental with vines wrapped around the nozzle. The soldier was smashing it against the door, just above the lock. Billy rushed towards Steve, both raising their guns –

“Boys, deal with that while I find the keys,” Hopper growled.

Billy didn’t need telling twice as he rushed over to the door – the fire extinguisher slammed into the door with another resounding bang –

Billy unlocked the door and flung it open as the soldier drew the fire extinguisher back for a third attempt. Steve got off a shot, catching the man straight in the stomach as Billy aimed another shot at one just beyond. The noise beyond the double doors was getting louder – _if Hopper waited much longer, he and Joyce weren’t going to make it –_

There was a slamming sound behind him. Steve wheeled around to see Hopper turning the lock on the door between them. The black box was on the floor just in front of them next to El's radio – Steve’s mind caught up a split second too late –

“_NO!_” Steve yelled.

“Sorry kid,” Hopper called through the glass. “I’m taking this one.”

Steve pounded the flat of his palm against the glass as Hopper stepped away.

“No – you _can’t-_”

He didn’t hear the gunshots from Billy as he fought to give them the last few moments that Steve clung to.

“You’ve got El – and Jonathan and Will-”

“Look after them,” Joyce pulled down her mask briefly to give him a smile. There were tears in her eyes – pouring down her face –

_She’d known. All this time, she’d known. She’d been planning this – she’d told Jonathan to look after Will in case things went wrong –_

“Steve,” Hopper explained. “Your dad knows you’re alive. He can’t lose you again.”

Steve opened his mouth, the flat of his palm smashing against the glass.

“Steve, we need to go!” Billy called.

The noise beyond the doors was reaching a critical volume – the other soldiers were almost upon them –

“Go,” Hopper pulled down his own mask to give Steve a sad smile. “Finish this – for good this time.”

The noise beyond the door seemed to stop for a moment – _the eye of the hurricane _– the soldiers gearing up for the next attack –

_It was now or never._

Steve grabbed the black box and El’s radio from the floor as Billy grabbed his arm and all but threw him away from the observation deck. They started running – they saw the door fly open – shouts explode from beyond – gunshots filled the air – but they didn’t stop running towards the bright red crack –

Billy grabbed Steve’s wrist as they launched themselves into the air over the chasm and through the Gate. Hopper and Joyce watched as they vanished through the glowing red crack in the wall and turned to each other.

There had never been any choice for either of them – from the moment they had realised that two people would need to stay behind, they had reached an unspoken agreement, never talked about directly, only ever in nods and veiled questions. The spectre of Starcourt had haunted them both for too long – Steve and Billy, for all their plans, never had a chance to stay behind – there was never any _question _of them staying behind.

They would not repeat Starcourt again.

“Are you sure?” Hopper turned to her, holding out a key for her to take while chaos reigned outside.

She smiled back at him, a melancholy sight that broke Hopper’s heart. Hands continued to slam against the doors – against the glass. Joyce took the key.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “It’s like I said – you’re not alone in this.”

She went over to the podium as Hopper did the same. The noise beyond the glass was getting louder, but they ignored it. Joyce met Hopper’s eyes and gave him the most genuine smile he had ever seen.

He did his best to return it.

They didn’t take their eyes from each other as they turned the keys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... symmetry...?
> 
> I'm so sorry it took me so long to get this chapter out, it's been a mad couple of weeks! However, I hope a highly dramatic, action-filled and emotional (if not somewhat predictable and heavily foreshadowed) chapter will make up for it! 
> 
> I know a lot of places are starting to lift lockdown laws, but still, stay safe, keep social distancing as best you can, and look after yourselves!


	49. Part 4 Chapter 14: Russians And Concussions

Steve landed on the floor, pulling his hands into his body to hold the black box and the radio close to his chest. He folded his body around them, not bothering to break his fall as the world came to a halt.

_Hopper and Joyce had stayed behind._

He barely heard the shouts above him – the sounds of guns cocking – the shouts in Russian – he didn’t see the silhouettes of soldiers approaching – he barely felt Billy grabbing his arm as he scrambled to his feet, pulling a thoroughly inert Steve with him – all Steve could do was grip, white-knuckled, onto the two things in his hands…

Reality came back to him with a gunshot – Billy had pulled out a gun and fired a shot at the nearest soldier – Steve glanced over, time moving slowly, _slower than it should…_ the soldier didn’t fall – gunshots were returned at them, muffled against the ringing in Steve’s ears… Billy turned to hiss something at him…

_“Steve, come on, we’ve got to move!”_

The room was suddenly plunged into darkness as reality resumed its normal state. Shouts in Russian overlapped themselves into a cacophony as every eye in the room swivelled towards the crack in the wall, the glowing red ember fading to black as the fault line went dark.

Billy grabbed Steve’s wrist as Steve finally pushed himself to his feet and tore Steve away from the room. They dimly heard shouts behind them, heard the soldiers following, but the momentary distraction gave them the few seconds that they needed to get away – to break through the line of soldiers closing around them and out into a corridor – a final gift from the sacrifice of Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers.

Billy led the way, pulling him out of the corridor that was mercifully empty and around into a room before locking the door behind them. They tore across the empty room and out the other side into another empty corridor – the rooms started to blur into one, all Steve could do was follow the retreating figure of Billy as they gained ground on the soldiers following.

Billy finally led him into an empty room and stopped for breath. Steve slowed to a halt, breathing hard, not stopping as Billy grabbed the radio from Steve’s hand and turned it on. Steve found himself staring into space at a blank concrete wall, his mind far away in another dimension, in a place he would have stayed behind in to spare anyone else from that fate.

_The Gate was closed._

_Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper were gone from this world._

-:-

The bare expanse of road in front of Robin had never felt so ominous. Her eyes scanned the trees, looking for any signs of movement, any blur that wasn’t a tree racing past them on the side of the road. She could _hear _the roars of those _things _in the trees, racing after Nancy and Jonathan – _who also seemed to have a small army of Russians on their tail –_

She almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of static exploding from two radios behind her.

_“…lo? Hello? Does anyone copy?”_

She didn’t dare take her eyes from the road at the _last _voice she expected to hear coming out of the radio. Max lunged across the backseat to snatch the radio out of Dustin’s hand.

“Billy? _Billy, _is that you?”

Robin’s heart went out to her at the relief that was so evident in her voice. Her tear-stained face was blotchy and red, her eyes rimmed with red as she clenched the radio with white knuckles.

_“Max? Yeah, shitbird, it’s me. We’ve got the hard drive black box thing, we’re stuck in the Lab though, can you meet us at the place we parked?”_

Max nodded silently, her eyes closed tight as a smile spread across her face. Dustin, however, pulled the radio out of Max’s hands.

“Who’s _‘we’?_” he asked tentatively. “Who else is with you?”

_“Uh… Steve…”_ Billy sounded hesitant.

Robin felt relief flood into her stomach. _Steve had made it back. _He was okay, _he was going to be okay_. Dustin could barely stop the grin that spread across his face, identical in the relief that Max felt.

_But good news for one person meant bad news for another._

Mike glanced between El and Will in the back of the car, his eyes wide as he grabbed his own radio.

“What about Mrs Byers and the Chief?” he finally asked. His stomach was tying itself up in knots at the dread for the answer. Because if Steve and Billy had made it back…

_“They stayed behind,” _Billy answered. _“They closed the Gate.”_

Mike glanced over at Will, whose eyes fell shut at Billy’s words. He turned away to one side as El stared at the radio. There was no surprise in her eyes, and Mike realised that she’d _always _known how it was going to end. She’d known, she’d accepted Hopper’s decision, and Mike watched her heart break as she finally got confirmation.

_“W-what?”_

The shaky voice of Jonathan came through the radio. Mike’s heart went out to him – he’d caught glimpses, brief tangential glimpses of what Jonathan had gone through with Will. Mike hadn’t given much thought to it at the time – he hadn’t given it much thought _after, _preoccupied as he was with El and Will’s return, but Mike remembered seeing Jonathan come into school and pin up a missing poster to the wall, the lost, drifting feeling in his eyes hidden only by the scowl as he’d struggled with the pin.

And with those seven words, he’d just lost his _mom._

The radio went static for a long moment as the loss sank in. Mike felt his leg start to shake, hunched as he was in the trunk of the car with El. Mrs Byers used to make them cookies – from day one of kindergarten, she’d been welcoming. He’d always been confused by Will’s lack of a _dad, _but when he finally asked Will why he didn’t have a dad to go home to, Will had simply said that he didn’t need one. His mom was enough. Having met her, having known her, Mike had agreed. He’d agreed even more after seeing her unwavering determination to bring Will back from the Upside Down.

As for Hopper, for all his blatant dislike of Mike, Mike had realised that despite everything – despite keeping El a secret from him for almost a year, despite how much Mike had come to loathe almost every aspect of his existence before Starcourt, he felt the loss like a punch in the stomach. The man who had looked at them with such exasperation as he’d asked them about Will’s whereabouts and route home on that fateful November night, who had shown up as they were trapped on a bus before volunteering to go into the Upside Down to get Will when almost anyone else would have dismissed them as kids making things up to cope with the loss of their friend, the who had helped him out of a Lab as Demodogs hunted them, the man who had held him to his chest as he’d screamed and yelled and punched him at the discovery of El’s survival, who had driven him to and from the cabin in the months that had followed, was _gone. _He’d stayed behind in Hell to save them all.

But for all Mike felt, he knew that his own feelings of loss, the carved-out hole in his stomach, was _nothing _compared to what El and Will were going through.

_“Look, we really need a ride,” _Billy’s voice finally came through the radio once more. _“We’ve got a load of Russians on our tail and we need to get this thing to Owens. Can you meet us there or not?”_

_“So what, that’s _it?_” _Jonathan’s incredulous voice came through the radio a moment later. _“They’re gone – and we’re just going to leave them there?”_

There was silence on all ends of the radio communication. Robin pulled the car over to the side of the road as she reached behind her towards Dustin in the back seat, who numbly handed over the radio.

“Jonathan,” Robin said softly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s much we can do.”

There was a noise on the other end of the line, and Mike suddenly remembered that Jonathan was _driving. _He had half an army on his tail – unlike Robin, he couldn’t pull over –

“Wait,” Mike muttered. “There _is _something.”

Will and El both snapped their heads up and around to look at him.

“We could try to take out the Mind Flayer,” Mike explained to the car, talking down into the radio. “We could open a Gate – Hopper and Mrs Byers could come through.”

“We talked about that, El needs protection-” Lucas began.

“Well, _we _can protect her, can’t we?” Mike explained. “We can look after her-”

_“Mike, are you _insane?_” _Nancy’s voice replaced Jonathan’s. _“You can’t protect her from Russians.”_

_“No,”_ Steve’s voice came through the radio. His voice sounded breathy, ragged, and completely exhausted, but a new fire burnt there, the beginnings of a steely determination. _“But _we _can.”_

There was a pause while a noise that sounded a lot like a radio being snatched back echoed throughout the room.

_“Wheeler, we don’t know if they’re still alive,” _Billy’s voice sounded reluctant to point this simple fact. _“We could be opening up the Gate only for them to have been killed in the explosion – or by Russians – there were a lot of Russians after us, we barely made it-”_

_“That’s not as big a problem as you might think,” _Steve interrupted, his voice less clear, as though he was slightly further away from the radio. _“They closed the Gate. If they did it right like last time, everyone in that room would have been killed.”_

_“Okay, so they’re facing _half _an army,” _Billy huffed. _“We don’t know if they’re still alive-”_

_“Billy, we _have _to try,” _Steve explained quietly. _“You _know _we have to try.”_

“We can’t leave them,” Mike muttered quietly. “If El’s okay with it…”

He looked hesitantly over at her. Every eye in the car looked over at her. Will’s eyes were shining with tears as a look of nervous hope settled on his face. She looked around the car, taking in Max’s nervous smile before finally coming to look at Dustin. He was looking at her with a strange look in his eyes and gave her the tiniest shrug.

_The choice is yours._

She turned back to Mike, breaking into a tentative smile as though there was ever a question. She plucked the radio from his hands as she said four words into the radio.

“I can do it.”

-:-

Jonathan barely kept his hands on the steering wheel as he wheeled the car around the corner. El’s words had his eyes blurred – he blinked back tears in a desperate attempt to clear his vision. He couldn’t afford to break down – not now, not with the Russians still on his tail – he didn’t know where he was driving – he didn’t care – he just needed to keep moving.

_“They’re not going to be able to make it out of the Lab,” _Billy explained as Jonathan’s arms started to shake on the steering wheel. _“If we’re going to do this, we need to open the Gate here in the Lab.”_

_“We’re going to need cover to get in,” _Mike’s voice came through.

_“If you guys can get to the entrance to the Lab, we can get you to the Gate site,” _Steve said, slightly more substance in his voice now that they had a plan, his determination shining through. _“If the guards are still after Jonathan, you guys should be okay.”_

Jonathan looked over at Nancy, who tilted his head at him with a small smile twisting up her lips.

“Yeah, they’re still after us,” she said into the radio.

_“Great, then it’s settled,” _Mike’s voice was decisive. _“We’ll come to the Lab while Nancy and Jonathan are distracting the Russians.”_

_“There’s a big tear in the fence,” _Steve explained. _“You can sneak through there without anyone noticing. The trees will give you enough cover that you can get close enough to the door if you’re quiet.”_

There was another muffled sound as though a radio was being snatched back.

_“Which might be a bit difficult for you, Wheeler,” _Billy’s voice contained a level of amusement that Nancy couldn’t help smiling at. _“You drop off Supergirl and pick up this thing and get it to Owens.”_

_“Great,”_ Mike said. _“Jonathan, Nancy, keep the Russians off our tail.”_

“We’ll do our best,” Nancy said, letting out a shaky laugh. “Just go quickly, okay?”

_“Sure, we’re heading there now,” _she could hear the smile in Mike’s voice. _“Over and out.”_

The radio fell silent, giving way to the roars that had followed them since the Lab. Jonathan glanced at his wing mirror, but he could see nothing beyond the trees blurring past the window.

“Nancy, can you see anything?”

She twisted in her seat, glancing over her shoulder. “No, I – I can’t see a thing…”

Jonathan frowned, easing his foot a fraction off the gas pedal – it was more than he would have dared, but he needed to _know –_

Nothing.

Nothing leapt out of the trees at them. No car caught up to them. He slowly lifted his right foot – the speedometer read sixty, fifty, _forty…_

“What’s going on?” Nancy asked as she looked between Jonathan and the windows. “Where _are _they?”

Jonathan eased his foot completely off the accelerator, letting the car roll to a stop in the middle of the deserted road. He opened the window to hear –

Nothing.

Total silence.

There was the sound of an owl hooting in a tree nearby. Nancy opened the car door and stepped out into the night. She looked up the road, the penny slowly dropping.

_They weren’t being hunted anymore._

Nancy jumped back into the car and switched on the radio. She was surprised the antenna didn’t break at the speed she pulled it out.

“Steve – Mike – come in!” she all but screamed into the radio. “The Russians – they’re headed your way – they’re after you – _get out of there!_”

-:-

Neither Mike nor Dustin heard Nancy’s call. Their radios stayed silent as they got close to the door, switched off to avoid their cover being blown.

There was still one guard at the door, looking nervously around, both out over the forest and inside the building, looking for anything that might be a threat. Robin wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but he looked nervous – jumpy – _young…_

The guard turned away to look inside, his fingers running over the weapon in his hand that looked altogether too big for him. Robin gestured towards the kids as they slipped across the parking lot to duck behind the one remaining car. They were less than ten feet from the entrance.

Robin held out a hand in a stopping motion as she crept towards the door. She glanced through the back windows at the last guard. She watched as he turned away, looking back inside hesitantly –

She moved.

She moved as quickly as she could, trying to stay quiet and closing the final gap between them, bat in hand, and swung it at the man. She caught him with the wood of the bat, just below where the nails started.

“_Ah! Chem ty-_”

She swung again, this time catching the back of his head with a sickening crunch, wincing as she realised that she’d caught the side of his head with a couple of nails – _she’d been trying to avoid that – _he let out a whine as he staggered sideways, his knees giving out – his hand went towards a radio on his belt –

She brought the handle of the bat down as hard as she could on the back of his head, finally succeeding in knocking him out. She winced as he fell to the floor, the torn flesh on the side of his head showing through his hair. She blanched at the blood – she hadn’t intended to cause that much damage, but he _was _going to call for help…

She glanced over at the kids, still ducked behind the car but slightly less well-hidden as they seemed to have settled in a position where she could see them all looking at her, eyes wide in surprise. She didn’t say a word as she beckoned over to them.

Dustin gave her an incredulous, impressed look as they slipped over to join her.

“We need to find Steve and Billy,” she whispered before any of them could get a word out. She had no desire to hear about how _awesome _or _epic _or _whatever _it was that she had successfully knocked out a Russian Guard with a baseball bat, possibly causing brain damage. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, didn’t they say to meet us _here?_” Max asked incredulously.

“They said to get to the entrance,” Robin corrected. “We’ve done that. They’re not here. So let’s find somewhere to lay low and work out where to meet them.”

“But-”

“Do you _want _to stick around and wait for the Russians to find us?” Robin raised an eyebrow over at her.

She didn’t argue any further. Robin didn’t smile but released Max from the glare that locked her in place. She led the way to the door to the stairs, peering through the glass window that gave a passing glimpse of what lay beyond before pushing it open.

The stairwell was entirely deserted, the army of Russians and Demogorgons evidently far more preoccupied with the two threats that they knew about, hunting down Steve and Billy inside the building or else chasing Nancy and Jonathan in the woods beyond. Robin thanked small mercies that they were _quite _as low down on the priority list as they were as she reached out her hand with her palm facing up towards Dustin, who handed over his radio. She switched it on, holding the radio as close to her mouth as she could while speaking in the quietest voice she could muster.

“Steve? Billy? Do you copy? We’re in the Lab, in the stairwell just by the main entrance, ground floor.”

There was a cracking of static before –

_“Robin? What the fuck are you doing there?”_

The terrified anger in his voice was enough to send a chill down her spine. She was just about to ask what exactly his problem was –

_“We’ve been trying to reach you – abort! The Russians that were chasing after Jonathan and Nancy – all the Demogorgons – they’re coming back – you need to get the fuck out of there – you’re going to get trapped!”_

Robin froze for a second. Exactly one beat of her heart was all it took for adrenaline to flood every limb in her body. It spurred her into action – she sprinted towards the door to the stairwell and flung it open – she made it a whole extra step beyond –

She caught sight of a car pulling up into the parking lot, a Russian jumping out of the passenger side before the car even came to a stop. She froze, her heart pounding in her chest as she made the briefest eye contact with him through the door –

The shout went up.

A hand started pointing in her general direction, the alarm raised, but she didn’t stick around to see what _‘the alarm’ _looked like. She turned and sprinted back through the door to the stairwell, shoving the kids in the general direction of the stairs – they didn’t need any encouragement – she could hear Dustin swearing over and over again in that same screech that he’d used when they were being chased by Russians underneath Starcourt – _one, two, three, four, five, six – _they were all here – she pushed herself up the stairs – the pain in her legs from going upstairs screaming in protest like they had a choice in the matter – it was nothing, _nothing _compared to the fear in her mind –

She couldn’t help but look as the shock took over when the door smashed off its hinges, sent flying across the floor a storey below – Robin knew in that instant that she had a new nightmare – a huge figure straightened up, a faceless head peeling open like a flower to scream with nothing but teeth and a gaping chasm of black –

She had to run.

She started to push herself as fear that she had never felt before took over – around and around the stairs – but the monster was catching up – it wasn’t even bothering to use the stairs, just clawing its way up the side of the walls, huge claws tearing into stone like a cat climbing up a scratching post – _it was hopeless – they were never going to outrun it –_

She was proven right a second later when it launched itself through the railings – quite literally _through_, bending them back as it forced them apart like snapping through police tape – positioning itself in the middle of the Party, with her and Dustin on one side, separated from the rest.

There was nothing else for it.

She swung the bat as hard as she could – she didn’t care for finesse like she had done with the guard – _this _was what it was best for – what it had been _made _for – the Demogorgon barely had a chance to turn towards Lucas before the bat smacked into the side of its head –

But she couldn’t pull it out.

The nails embedded themselves further into the Demogorgon’s flesh as she tried to maintain some semblance of grip as it ripped its head around and screamed at her. She stumbled – A huge claw swung around and caught her in the side of the head, sending her flying into the wall.

Her vision blurred as she hit the floor. She could feel blood in her hair – her ears were ringing from the impact – the world looked like it was doubled – _tripled _– everything was blurry…

She could see the huge grey body approach her, face open in a scream – it felt slower than it should have – only one thought could permeate through her brain…

_This was how she was going to die._

The bat had fallen to the floor – she couldn’t reach it – she saw it raise its claw –

_Fire._

Bright orange light illuminated her vision – it was so bright that she closed her eyes – she could feel the heat radiating from the Demogorgon – the Demogorgon was _screaming _– the sound broke through her eardrums, shredding what wasn’t already ringing – she pulled a hand up to her face to cover her eyes – the light was burning through her lids –

As suddenly as it started, it stopped. The screams – the light – the heat – _gone. _All that was left was the ringing in her ears, the smell of burning flesh and the taste of blood in her mouth. _That was not good. That was very not good. She could probably write the sum of her medical knowledge on the back of one hand with space to spare and she knew that tasting blood in her mouth was not good –_

She jumped when a hand touched her arm. Her eyes flew open and the blurry outline of blurry, frizzy hair around a head filled her vision –

“Robin?” Dustin’s voice barely broke through the ringing in her ears but it was _so full of concern_…

She blinked back the blurriness as best she could – Dustin’s head wasn’t staying still – nothing else beyond was coming into focus –

Billy Hargrove crouched down in front of her – she recognised his blonde hair, the curl hanging down towards his eyes remaining the last vestige of his mullet – he was easing her upright –

The world lurched violently to one side and she felt multiple pairs of hands on her shoulders. She turned her head sideways away from Billy to see _Steve_… He fiddled with the long black _thing _that he was carrying and slung it over his shoulder as he knelt beside her…

_“…We need to go…”_

_“…Not in any fit state to be walking…”_

_“…Carry her between us…”_

_“…On three. One, two…”_

‘Three’ was lost in a wave of pain as the world was sent spiralling – she felt two figures stretching her arms around their shoulders – they were taller than she was – pillars on either side of her, keeping her upright…

The world seemed to blur as they flew up the remaining stairs and through a door before the world went blissfully dark. She blinked – her eyes were still _open, _at least, that was something –

She was being set down on something or other – she was no longer on her feet, a solid, unyielding surface behind her back, stopping her from falling on her back – her head lolled back – a hand caught it gently before she could hit it on anything _else… _She was grateful for the gentleness of the touch as the hand guided her head towards the blonde curl – _it was all she could focus on…_

“Easy – _easy, _Buckley…” Billy’s voice permeated through the ringing in a way that nothing else had. “How many of me do you see?”

And that was _exactly _the sort of question that had her calling Steve _‘Dingus’, _because she knew what the answer _should _be – there was one Billy – one Billy with two heads – her eyes just weren’t focusing in the right place…

Her eyes lolled up to the hand that swatted at the side of Billy’s head and up to take in Steve properly. He was further away, blurrier, but she could make out outline of the thing he’d put over his shoulder earlier – _it might have been the flamethrower he’d saved them with in the car – it would explain what happened to the Demogorgon…_

A distant voice – possibly Lucas’ – suddenly drifted over to her.

_“They’re close.”_

She blinked and was relieved when her surroundings came slightly more into focus – she was on the floor of a darkened corridor – her head was going to be hurting like the mother of all hangovers for _at least _the next twenty-four hours…

“What are we going to do?” Mike ran a hand through his hair. “We can’t get out, we can’t get the hard drive to Owens, so he can’t get the coordinates of the Russian base-”

“Mike, take a deep breath-”

Mike ignored Steve.

“If we could find a computer, we could get into it ourselves,” Dustin suggested.

“Yeah, but they’ve gutted this place,” Billy pointed out. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s kind of a building site.”

Mike glared at him. Just because he’d made nice with Lucas and Steve _didn’t _mean that Mike trusted him as far as he could throw him – and given the size difference, Mike _knew _he couldn’t throw Billy at all. He turned away with a disdainful look, glancing up the corridor –

_And spotting the answer._

“The security camera,” he breathed.

Max frowned at him. “What about it?”

He barely spared her a passing glare before turning back to the others.

“The security camera _might _still feed into the system,” he explained. “I know where the surveillance room is – they might still have a computer there – if they _kept _the security cameras…”

“…Then we could use the computer to access the hard drive,” Dustin finished for him.

“And then we get the information to Owens over the radio,” Lucas said. “He’s still got mine…”

Steve gave them a slightly perplexed look, finding himself falling, once again, into the old routine of being the idiot of the group, there to make sure the shitheads didn’t get themselves killed.

“Great,” he shrugged, drawing a blank for any other plan. “One of us can go with El to open the Gate, one of us can go with you guys, keep you guys from dying.”

He looked over at Billy and Robin, the latter slowly getting a better grip on reality, eyes focusing slightly better.

“Billy, you should probably go with them,” he said. “If this shit’s in Russian, they might need someone who can _read _it…”

The sudden realisation on Dustin’s face told Steve that he seemed to have been the only one who had thought of that eventuality. Billy, however, nodded, looking down at Robin. She seemed to understand what he wanted to ask without a word leaving his lips, her eyes falling shut as she gave a single determined nod. He bent down and hauled her to her feet, watching as she wavered unsteadily. Steve’s fingers found the radio he’d clipped to his belt as he found the gun at his side.

“You got the thing?” Steve asked Billy.

Billy gave a single nod. Steve had slipped the black box into the backpack over his shoulders after they’d first radioed the news that Joyce and Hopper had stayed behind. With Buckley’s arm draped over his shoulder, he gave Steve a smile that Steve returned before glancing over at El.

“Good luck,” Billy muttered.

“You too,” Steve grinned back. “Look after them.”

Billy nodded as Steve turned back to El, who in turn waved at Mike before Steve led the way down the corridor away from them. Billy watched him go before turning back to Mike and realising that he hadn’t been the only one. He cleared his throat to try and snap Mike out of whatever trance had left him with that wistful look on his face.

“Hey, Wheeler,” he grunted. “Lead the way.”

-:-

El did not like the Lab.

She had never liked the Lab. She did not necessarily agree that the removal of all the equipment improved it.

She largely agreed that the addition of Russian soldiers did not make it better.

She glanced over at Steve, following him as he stayed in front of her. He reminded her slightly of Hopper – though that could have something to do with the situation she found herself in, and how vividly she was reminded of the last time that she had walked these halls.

The corridor they were walking down was clear – Steve would press her against the wall as he glanced around corners. He carefully picked the way through the rooms, clearing them efficiently as the sounds of footsteps in the distance dimmed. If the way that Steve kept glancing behind him over her shoulder was anything to go by, he seemed to agree that the Russians had split up to try and find them. Which was both a good thing and a bad thing.

It was _good_ because it meant that anyone who _did _find them would probably be with far fewer people. It was _bad _because the first place they’d check would _probably _be the Gate – or at least, the _site _of the Gate.

Steve seemed to concur with her own analysis as he turned around and beckoned to her, ushering her after him and towards a doorway. He reached out a hand as they approached, pressing her against the wall, before leaning to peer around the doorway.

He turned to her with a slightly surprised smile turning up the corner of his lips.

“It’s empty,” he breathed. “Must be out looking for us elsewhere.”

She blinked slightly, the initial gladness fading into determination as Steve slipped inside, gun held aloft in case of any _surprises…_

Their luck held. The room seemed to be entirely empty as Steve went about making sure that all the doors were closed and locked – _not that it would do much…_

El looked around the room, taking in the sight of the walls. It looked different – _bare _– but she _knew _this room. There was only one room with ceilings _this _high, and she knew exactly why. The Bathtub had been where she was now standing.

The far wall still had a huge gaping crack in the stone as she turned to face it.

“El,” Steve muttered from behind her.

She turned towards him.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he tried for a half-hearted smile, and she could see the _knowing _in his eyes. He _knew _that anything he said was futile.

“If it’s too much, we can find another way,” Steve continued, his grin widening at the look on her face, as though they were sharing a joke, that this spiel had become a _formality – _she’d learnt _that _word from school. “Hopper and Mrs Byers, they’re… they’ll be fine.”

The smile dropped at those words – she knew he was _trying _to convince her that he believed it – he was trying to convince _himself _– but the flicker of doubt in his voice wasn’t entirely hidden. Because there were _Russians _and _Demogorgons _and the _Mind Flayer _on the other side of the Gate, and Steve knew better than most what they were capable of. El knew, too. The Russians were _Bad Men. _That much was painfully clear. She’d wondered if they’d made Steve do _Bad Things _like _her_ Bad Men had made her do.

She wondered if they’d hurt _Hopper._

El didn’t answer, holding out a hand for her radio. Steve gave her a slightly sad smile as he handed over the radio that had been clipped to his belt while she pulled out a blindfold.

“I’ll keep watch here,” Steve explained, not taking his hand off the radio as he placed it in hers. “If it’s too much, just come out. Don’t worry about me, whatever happens.”

El gave him a grin as he finally let go of the radio.

“Don’t worry, Steve,” she tried for a smile. “I can do it.”

-:-

Buckley was looking _slightly _better as Max and the rest of her shithead friends piled into a room after Wheeler. She could now move her own feet in a vague way, shuffling them along the ground in a half-hearted attempt at walking, but given that they needed to _move _before the Russians or – God forbid – another one of those _things _caught up to them, Billy still took the brunt of her weight. He had the bat from Hell that had once threatened his genitals hanging loosely in his Robin-free hand – quite what he was expected to _do _with it was a mystery.

“Oh, thank _God,_” Wheeler said at the sight of the array of screens that lined one of the walls of the room that he had led them into. Billy spared the blank screens a passing glance, glancing at a computer that took pride of place.

“Is that a CPC 464?” Dustin asked.

The voices faded into overlapping words that could well have been Mongolian for all that Billy understood. Wheeler sat in front of the computer, switching it on while Billy settled Robin down on the floor, propping her up against the wall, pausing only to turn the lock before kneeling down beside her.

“Easy, Buckley,” he muttered. “Try and keep your eyes open. Don’t want you falling asleep and into a coma.”

She spared him the closest thing to a withering glare that she could come up with – which was, admittedly, still pretty withering – while he tried for a smile.

“Since when did you have a bedside manner?” she grumbled – or at least _tried _to. Billy just about extrapolated the meaning behind the slurred words as he shot back a wry grin.

“Steve’s given me a lot of practice,” he explained. “Self-preservation skills of a fruit fly…”

She closed her eyes, screwing them up tightly before pulling them open. “_…Dingus…_”

“_Billy!_”

Max’s shout had him wheeling around, shooting them a glare. The way that they were looking at him, however, told him that they _might _have been saying his name for a while.

“Where’s the hard drive?”

And, well, Max evidently hadn’t gotten any _politer _in his absence.

“Where do you _think?_” he huffed, shrugging off the backpack. He handed the bag over to Max, who was tearing into it with all the fervour of a seven-year-old on Christmas Day. She pulled out the strange orange object covered in Cyrillic writing and held it up with a dubious expression.

“Is this _it?_” she asked, her expression mirrored in the rest of the shitheads’ faces.

Billy raised his eyebrows. “Yeah,” he shook his head. “And you shitbirds had better not tell me that I brought back the wrong thing, because Byers _told _me that it was the right thing, said her old boyfriend Bob kept going on about black boxes that were actually orange or some shit-”

“It’s an _FDR?_”

The confusion cleared up on Steve’s favourite shithead’s face to be replaced with barely contained excitement at the prospect of finally seeing a new piece of technology.

“What’s an FDR?” Max asked the question on everyone’s minds.

“Flight Data Recorder,” Dustin explained. “They’re so that if the plane crashes, they’re likely to survive so we can find it and tell why the plane crashed.”

He snatched the orange black box out of Max’s hands and took it over to the table where he and the other nerdy shitheads could go about analysing it. Billy left them to it, satisfied enough that he’d brought back the right thing to focus on Buckley, who had _slightly _more colour in her face. It was just a pity that the colour was _green. _

“Yeah, Buckley, do me a favour and try _not _to throw up,” Billy gave a wry smile. “I’m not sure there’s a bucket in here or anything.”

She gave him another glare with half-lidded eyes before smiling wickedly. “_That’s_ more what I was expecting,” she slurred back at him, and Billy was relatively encouraged to see that the words were slightly more defined than her last attempt at speech. “God help the kids who got hurt on your watch at the pool.”

“They didn’t dare,” Billy grinned back. “One of the perks of being terrifying.”

She gave him a lethargic grin back at him as the shitheads’ conversation drifted over them.

_“…Get the cable,”_

_“I’m _getting _the cable, Mike!”_

_“Dustin, that’s the wrong cable-”_

_“Well, if his Majesty would like to get up and look-”_

“SHITHEADS!” Billy boomed out over the room when the volume was getting a little loud for his liking. “Indoor voices. Russians and concussion over here.”

The argument dropped down to a quieter but no less vehement whisper as they hissed at each other.

_“Is _this _the right cable, Michael?”_

_“Yes, _thank you, _Max.”_

_“Guys, I think it’s working…”_

He turned away from them and back towards Buckley, who was looking slightly less like she was about to throw up. Her eyes were closed, but she had enough awareness for her eyebrows to crease into a tiny frown as Mike and Max started hissing at each other.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep,” Billy put a hand on her arm. He searched around for a topic that would keep her talking. “What was… what was Steve like to work with?”

Her eyes cracked open as she gave him the filthiest glare so far, but she readjusted herself with a groan.

“Awful,” she made a brave attempt at a grin. “Kept striking out with every legal girl that came into the place. Would get distracted by the morons coming in. Finally took the cake when he introduced me to Russian conspiracies.”

Billy let out a slight chuckle. “Yeah, that’s…”

“The worst fucking colleague ever,” Robin’s voice was _definitely _slurring less. “It’s not enough to make me watch his _smooth technique with the ladies _everyday like he was the only person in the room with game, but then he takes me down to murderous Russians and interdimensional portals? And fucking _dies _at the end of it? Selfish douchebag…”

She was grinning. Billy couldn’t help but grin back at her sense of humour.

“Maybe word it a bit differently when you take it up with him,” Billy suggested.

“No, I’m good with that way,” Robin grumbled. “Dingus doesn’t get to die to get off the hook. Even if he _does _come back from the dead. Leaving _me _to answer months of questions about how we were dating from _Connor fucking Morrison._”

The name rang a bell in Billy’s mind – _basketball team – would now be a senior –_ _decent player but not as good as he thought he was – often had his grand contribution to a conversation being a rewording of a joke that Billy had made thirty seconds prior –_

“Yeah, well, he’s a-”

_“Billy!”_

Billy broke off but didn’t turn around as he rolled his eyes at the shout.

“_What, _Maxine?”

She paused at his exasperated tone. “I just…” she sounded hesitant. “It’s all in Russian.”

He felt a wave of guilt at the slight meekness in her tone as he stood up. He hadn’t _meant _to snap, but there was a belligerence in the way that she had interrupted that had prompted an instinctive reaction. He patted a hand on her shoulder as he passed – not exactly an _apology, _but a _peace offering. He didn’t mean it._

The screen of tiny green Cyrillic letters that he was presented with was daunting, to say the least.

“The fuck am I looking at here, Wheeler?”

“Isn’t that what _you’re _supposed to tell _us_-”

“It’s all the data on the disc,” the youngest Byers seemed to be the most helpful in this situation, cutting off Wheeler’s arrogant protest. “There was a floppy disc in there-”

“Yeah, black boxes basically take and record a copy of everything,” Dustin took over the explanation. “They record the coordinates that the plane travels to and from, as well as making an audio recording of everything that happens in the cockpit, including all communications with Air Traffic Control-”

“Not interested in a computers lesson,” Billy cut off Dustin’s ramblings. “So somewhere in and among this shit, we’ve got the coordinates for the Russian base?”

“Theoretically,” Dustin said.

Billy scanned the page, feeling some sense of relief at the sight of a few numbers jumping out at him. The idea of deciphering _quite _this much Russian was exhausting, to say the least.

“Coordinates are numbers, right?” Billy asked the room at large.

There was a nod in his periphery. “Latitude and longitude,” Dustin said. “London’s longitude is zero, so we’re looking for something east of that.”

Billy nodded. “And how long are these numbers?”

“Usually eight digits each,” Wheeler said. “They might be shorter or longer, though, depending on how far we’re going.”

“And there are two sets of eight digits,” Lucas added. “They might have a decimal point somewhere in there.”

Billy had to blink as he took this information in while scanned the page. He tried to focus on the numbers, to read any of the text around them, but _God, _the Russians needed to work on their user-friendly interface –

“There!”

Billy almost jumped out of his skin at Lucas pointing at the screen over his shoulder – he hadn’t been aware he was even _reading _over his shoulder.

“That number keeps coming up,” Lucas said. “I don’t know what it means, but it’s the right length to be a coordinate.

Billy tilted his head as he glanced at the number.

_58.497273, 160.959644_

“It keeps coming up,” Lucas said nervously. “More than any of the other numbers – like… they kept going _back _there…”

Billy looked over at him incredulously. “Nice one, Sinclair.”

Lucas managed a small smile. Billy turned back towards the monitor, scouring the text around the number. When it yielded nothing, he glanced over at the next instance of the number –

“One sixty…” Byers mused. “That’s pretty far east…”

“Yeah, it’s like, as far east as Alaska is west,” Dustin added.

“Well, Russia’s pretty big,” Buckley grumbled from her position on the floor. “Kamchatka’s pretty far out-”

Something pounded on the door, startling everyone. Billy’s hand immediately flew to the gun – it wasn’t nearly as effective as Steve’s flamethrower against those _things, _but it might give Max a chance to get out –

The lock held. Billy had never been so glad to hear Russian voices on the other side of the door. He could at least _shoot _Russians.

“Get the Doc on the radio,” Billy said. “Give him that number.”

“Do we know if it’s _right?_” Wheeler piped up.

Billy turned back to the screen, looking for _any _instance of that number and briefly scanning the text around it –

“There’s something about refuelling,” Billy said. “I _think _it’s at those coordinates – we’ve got to take a chance here.”

Buckley pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, picking up the bat from the floor where Billy had dropped it. She was closer to the door, but she’d drop like a stone if she took another hit –

Wheeler fiddled with the radio in Billy’s peripheral vision, trying to find the channel to communicate with Owens on – there was another thud on the door –

“Doctor Owens? Doctor Owens, come in. It’s Mike Wheeler – we’ve got the coordinates-”

_THUD!_

Buckley was looking slightly steadier on her feet, adrenaline overriding the blow to her head –

_“Mr Wheeler, what are you – you’ve got – how – what?”_

“The coordinates,” Wheeler was clearly fighting back a panicked scream into the radio at the Doctor’s confusion. “We’ve got them, but we’re trapped in the Lab-”

_THUD!_

“-Hopper and Mrs Byers and Steve and Billy – they went into the Upside Down to get the coordinates – we’ve got them now, but the Russians have found us and we’re trapped-”

_THUD!_

“Hurry _up, _Wheeler!” Billy snarled at him.

“The coordinates – they’re fifty-eight point four nine seven two seven three north, one sixty point nine five nine six four four east,” Wheeler recited into the radio.

Owens was clearly struggling to comprehend the strange turn of events in his absence, but fortunately had the sense to ask questions later.

_“Repeat that first number, sorry.”_

_THUD!_

“Fifty-eight point four nine seven two seven three north,” Wheeler’s voice jumped half an octave as the hinges rattled, but his voice remained clear.

_“How sure are you about this?” _Owens asked.

Wheeler shot a look at the other occupants in the room, hesitation in his eyes as he looked to Billy for confirmation. Billy gave him a dark look.

“As sure as we _can _be,” Wheeler said into the radio.

_“Can I talk to Hopper?”_

Billy saw Wheeler’s eyes fall shut at those words. He wasn’t alone – Byers’ eyes suddenly widened sadly, his shoulders tensing up. Billy felt a twist in his gut as he remembered the look on Steve’s face – the last glimpse of those two faces stranded in the place that he never wanted to go back to –

_THUD!_

The bang on the door jolted everyone out of their second-long reverie.

“He stayed behind in the Upside Down,” Wheeler’s voice was tight, the ends of his words catching. “He closed the Gate and blew up the Russian machine. We’re – El’s reopening the Gate to get them back though.”

He blurted out this final piece of information, ripping the band-aid off. It clearly stung for the Doctor, though.

_“What – no – Mr Wheeler-”_

_THUD!_

“Sorry, got to go, Russians!” Wheeler blurted out and switched off the radio frantically. He paused for a frantic heartbeat to stare at the radio while the rest of the shitheads looked at him with wide eyes.

“Did you just… _hang up _on a government official?” Byers asked, a slight note of awe in his voice.

“Congratulate him later,” Billy growled. “In the meantime, get down, get out of sight-”

_THUD!_

“-That door’s not going to hold,” Billy explained. “They’re going to start shooting the second they’re through.”

Fortunately, the shitheads seemed to have the brain capacity to comply, ducking under the table and pressing themselves to the floor. There was a pause on the other side of the door – the voices on both sides seemed to stop – the brief calm before the storm…

Billy felt the tension like a wave of electricity – he grabbed Buckley and pressed her against a wall as the silence seemed to rush towards its end – a wave about to break –

_CRASH!_

-:-

Sitting still did not sit _well _with Steve.

The deserted room was filled with static blaring out of the radio next to El. He had not expected to find the room deserted, nor had he expected it to be so easy to secure. His eyes flickered between El, sat cross-legged on the floor with a blindfold over her eyes, and each and every door. It had been too _easy – had he missed a door? Were they locked? Where _were _the Russians?_

They’d had no reason to guard the Gate when there was no Gate left to guard. That’s what he told himself – that’s what he _needed _to tell himself – the reason they’d had such an easy time was because nobody suspected that they planned to _reopen _the Gate. It was madness after all –

_BANG!_

-But perhaps not _quite _as unpredictable as Steve had hoped.

He raised his gun towards the door – sparing a glance down at the girl sat in front of the blank wall. She didn’t stir – she didn’t give any sign she’d heard what was going on – whether that was because she was ignoring it or because she simply hadn’t heard anything beyond her own world was not important.

Steve needed to keep it that way.

A burst of gunfire shredded the door to pieces, sending splinters flying through the air. The person on the other side of the door evidently decided that the best way to approach the obstacle was to destroy the weakest link, which – in this case – was several pounds of dense plywood. The reason for this destruction became immediately apparent at the sight of the figure that pushed its way past the broken door.

_Ozerov._

Steve felt something in his stomach rear up – _months _of pain, heartache, powerlessness and _fear, _constant fear for his life resurfaced at the sight of Ozerov’s face. The man – _the monster _that had wanted nothing less than the absolute destruction of his friends, that had taken _Steve Harrington _and turned him into someone capable of shooting another human being without a second thought, who had taken Billy and broken his mind before taking his body and breaking that _too, _as little more than _punishment _for Steve – stood in front of him, a triumphant smile spreading across his face at the sight of Steve standing in front of El, no question needed to work out _who she was._

“Butterscotch,” Ozerov _purred. _“You brought her to me.”

Steve took a step to one side, placing himself squarely between Ozerov and El. Ozerov gave an amused smile as Steve raised the gun and pointed it at him.

“Now, Butterscotch, be _careful _where you’re pointing that,” Ozerov laughed. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to that _friend _of yours.”

Steve felt his shoulders tense. “You’re bluffing,” he snarled.

“_Am _I?” Ozerov took a step towards Steve, who responded by planting most of his weight on the back foot. “Are you prepared to take that chance?”

Steve glanced at the ruined plywood that had until very recently been a door. Nobody else had followed Ozerov in. They were entirely alone.

Steve knew, now that El was within his grasp, that Ozerov would not leave Steve alive. There was no _reason _to. His purpose had been served. No bargains for how useful he could be would save him, and Steve would not make them in the first place – not again. There was nothing he could do to spare Billy if something had gone wrong – _if _something had gone wrong – _if _Ozerov wasn’t lying.

Billy would be shown no mercy this time. Steve wouldn’t show any, either.

-:-

“How far are we?” Nancy asked.

“Not far,” Jonathan felt all the tension in her voice himself, he was just slightly better at controlling it.

“_Really, _Jonathan?” the strain started to show as she rounded on him. “Because we were driving for almost an hour before they turned back.”

“Yes, in a big loop,” Jonathan could feel his voice catching in his throat as he felt his grip tighten involuntarily. “We just need to – you know, _finish _it.”

Nancy didn’t look even remotely convinced.

“Look,” Jonathan sighed. “_There’s _the turnoff for the military hospital – we’re about five minutes away-”

_“Nancy! Nancy – Jonathan – come in – _please _come in!”_

If the heart-stopping adrenaline from rushing back to the Lab to get the rest of the kids out wasn’t enough as the abstract concept it was, it _absolutely _became enough at the desperate rasp of Mike’s voice bursting out of the radio in a way that Jonathan had never heard it.

“Mike?” Nancy’s voice jumped up as she barely held herself back from screaming into the radio. “_Mike! _Are you okay?”

_“We’re trapped in the Lab,” _Mike’s voice sounded so desperate. _“In the CCTV monitoring room. There are Russians outside the door – we can’t get out – we can’t get hold of Steve or El – Robin’s hurt…”_

“Mike, we’re coming!” Nancy’s eyes were screwed up. “We’re coming, just – just _hold on, _okay?”

The radio went silent as she looked over at Jonathan.

“Five minutes, you said?”

Jonathan gave her a look that he _hoped _conveyed the fear he felt for Mike and Will and the others. He pressed the accelerator down the final few centimetres to the floor, ignoring the whine of the engine for the first time in his life as the car was pushed to its limit.

“I’ll make it two.”

-:-

The overwhelming darkness felt strange – _uneasy_ – like it _knew _what she was trying to do. Like it didn’t entirely _agree _with what she was trying to do. It wasn’t the welcoming blackness that she had slipped into to try and find Mike all those times. The water on the floor rippled with some unseen wind, disturbing the mirror-like surface.

_“Joyce, we need to go!”_

Hopper’s voice echoed around her – but she couldn’t _see_ him – where _was _he? Was he safe? Was he still _alive?_

She turned in the darkness, trying to work out where it had come from –

_Siren._

Hopper had told her a story about a man who sailed the ocean. The man had passed an island of beautiful women who sang to him to try and bring him off course. Their song was so beautiful and tempting that nobody could resist it. Hopper had called it a Siren’s call. El had disagreed strongly, because _everyone _knows that sirens were loud and horrible and they meant bad things and they wailed and didn’t sound pretty or look pretty at all, so clearly Hopper had got the wrong name.

But in that moment, she understood the concept. She wasn’t looking for Hopper. She wasn’t looking for Joyce. She was looking for the _Mind Flayer_, and her friends were fighting to give her this time.

There was a bang that echoed around her, but she ignored it. She ignored the gunshots that followed. _They _were sirens. That made sense now. They were trying to draw her away. But she needed to stay on track – she needed to find –

It was difficult to distinguish the shadow from the shades of black that surrounded her, but it was unmistakeable. The black moved differently, something whirling around in a vortex as she followed the shadow up and into the void above her, making out the shape of a many-legged Shadow.

-:-

The car did not handle its second attempt at crashing through the barrier nearly as well as the first attempt. It rolled to a stop, the windshield shattered beyond recognition. The engine, which had been whining and rattling and generally protesting its abuse since Jonathan had pushed his foot down on the accelerator, gave out completely with a final screech that left smoke rising from under the hood.

Jonathan was starting to wish he’d thought of a _plan._

“Go – go – _go!_” Nancy yelled, flinging open the passenger door and grabbing the radio as she leapt out. She always _was _the sensible one.

Jonathan didn’t bother wasting time arguing or asking _where _exactly they were going – Nancy’s guidance seemed to follow the train of thought of _away from the car, and possibly in the vague direction of the Lab if it’s not too much trouble but the latter is not really essential at this time._

The car was abandoned as shouts, once again, echoed from across the grounds. Jonathan spared a passing glance up towards the building at the top of the driveway by the building – flashlights danced in the darkness; voices seemed to be moving towards them – _they had to get away from the driveway –_

He grabbed Nancy and pulled her sideways into the bare grassy slope, because it may not have been covered but it was dark – if they could use the cover of darkness and take the route that was _not _the most common route, then they _might_ stand a chance of making it back to building itself –

“_STOP!_”

Lights suddenly illuminated around them – tiny flashlights that surrounded them out of nowhere – they evidently weren’t the _only _ones who were using the darkness to their advantage. Neither Jonathan or Nancy had noticed the soldiers that surrounded them, spread out in the grounds after oh so many incursions –

All Nancy and Jonathan could do was raise their hands above their heads.

-:-

Ozerov lunged at Steve as the gun went off.

The shot went wide as Steve found himself stumbling sideways with the force of the man – _monster _– colliding with him. He staggered to one side, struggling to regain his balance as Ozerov looked at him like a cat surveying a mouse –

Steve swung the gun around again as Ozerov grabbed his hand. The fingers latched around his wrist with an unyielding, supernatural force that Steve couldn’t wrench himself from – the second hand forced the gun backwards – the barrel pointing up towards his face –

Steve brought up a knee that collided with Ozerov’s stomach. The force of it would have sent a man crashing to the ground, but Steve didn’t need the proof that Ozerov was no longer human. It did little more than inconvenience him, causing him to slightly readjust his footing as Steve finally took his hand off the gun.

The weapon fell to the floor as Ozerov’s hand reached up and grabbed Steve’s hair, yanking his head back as it returned the blow that Steve had just given him. The knee hit Steve’s stomach, instinctively causing him to try doubling over in pain, but the hand in his hair remained unyielding, holding him up before throwing Steve to one side, sending him skidding along the floor to a halt just in front of El.

-:-

El swallowed her fear, just like she had done at Starcourt all those months ago. Then, she had been trying so hard not to bring it through. Now, however, that was _exactly _what she was trying to do. She _needed _to. She needed to end this.

For everyone.

-:-

Nancy didn’t speak a word of Russian, but the gun pointed at her face seemed to transcend most languages. She was going to die.

_Jonathan _was going to die. _Mike _and _Will _and _Lucas and Dustin and Max and Billy and Robin and El and Steve _were going to die. Joyce and Hopper were going to die in the Upside Down if they weren’t already dead. Paul and Linda Harrington were going to have to bury their son for a second time. Her parents were going to be left with Holly, explaining to them that _Nancy and Mike won’t be coming home _without ever knowing _why _or what had _truly _happened. Their lives would be consigned to another NDA signed by the few people alive who would be in the know.

The only question that remained was whether Nancy and Jonathan were going to die in this godforsaken patch of grass or whether they’d be taken somewhere first and shot where it was easier to clear up the mess.

“_Ubey ikh seychas,_” one of the soldiers barked.

The cocking of guns told Nancy all that she needed to know about what that meant.

-:-

Ozerov bent down over Steve as he fought to find his feet. Hands wrapped around Steve’s wrists, pushing him down into the ground as he struggled. He was pinned on his back, his wrists pressed together –

Steve brought a knee up to his chest, trying to find enough purchase to push Ozerov off, but he couldn’t get it under Ozerov – Ozerov seemed to regard it as little more than an irritant.

Steve’s eyes went wide as Ozerov’s hand closed around his throat.

-:-

Nancy closed her eyes.

_“Tri…”_

She held the image in her mind of Jonathan at the door to Murray’s spare bedroom, standing there in his pyjamas…

_“Dva…”_

She would not let that moment be tainted… she would die thinking of Jonathan, because she _loved _him, with an all-consuming fire that taught her what _‘love’ _meant –

The earth began to shake.

The shouts that echoed around them did not match the controlled way that they had ordered their deaths. She dared to open her eyes as the shouts got more urgent – _everyone was looking at the Lab…_

-:-

Steve felt Ozerov shaken off him. Quite literally _shaken. _

The earth was shaking around them. Steve’s head snapped towards the wall as he scrambled to his feet, taking advantage of the momentary distraction. A strange expression was on Ozerov’s face – not glee, not horror, but _surprise_ as he finally realised what they were doing –

The room was filled with a bright red light as the crack in the wall illuminated, bright red shooting up and down the wall in a blinding light. The earth shook as the ground split – the concrete not wide enough to span the gap as the wall broke apart. The red light spilled through the fissure as it became a chasm, leaving Steve to stare at it with the same shock that was on Ozerov’s face.

_El had opened the Gate._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like just about everyone, I've been really shocked by what happened to George Floyd. It's really great to see the changes that have been made in the wake of the global protests, but it's really important that we KEEP talking about this to bring about long-lasting change. I know that a lot of people may not be in a position either to protest or to donate, but if you still want to help, there are some really great ways that you can, including this video where you can donate to BLM causes by watching youtube ads. If you're not in a position to donate for whatever reason, you can still help by turning off any adblocker you may have (which I wouldn't normally recommend but it's youtube ads rather than a weird unknown website) and just letting the video play out in the background and letting the ads run their course. It's awesome and a great way to help, there's some great music by black artists, and all the ad revenue is donated to BLM causes, so check it out!  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgLa25fDHM&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1OuNWVExYRxBegIhg6E1ccEUj9yNK91ehl_YUevdhLfHCwRBEqhuVTK2U


	50. Part 4 Chapter 15: Should I Stay Or Should I Go

_It was fighting. She’d never known strength like this. It was anchoring itself to the world that she couldn’t tear it from – but she _had _to – she had to for Hopper and Joyce and Will and Dustin and Lucas and Max and Billy and Nancy and Jonathan and Steve and _Mike, _always for Mike, because even though he had said that they couldn’t be together, she loved him, and he’d never said that he didn’t love her, and he had saved her, taken her away from the Bad Men and showed her that there was _life, _a reason worth living, a whole glorious world beyond white walls and Labs and doctors and Papa, a beautiful world where the sun shone in the sky and she could see it whenever she liked, where she could be read books before bed and read books and work out the meanings of words she’d never heard, where she could talk for hours on the radio with her friends and Mike and have dinners with Joyce and Will and Jonathan and Hopper, where she could go to school and call Troy Walsh and James Dante mouthbreathers to their faces and laugh with Max in Chemistry because there was nobody to stop them, where she could look at the back of Mike’s dark head and smile because she didn’t need superpowers to see what was going on in his head, because it was painted on his face, whether it was exasperation at Lucas or amusement at Dustin’s expense or fondness for Will, she knew what all his expressions meant, how his eyes would squint when he lost a point in an argument and come back defensive or how his face would light up when he smiled or how his face wouldn’t light up quite as much as it did for her, even if she hadn’t seen that light recently. She would tear the world apart for the life that he had given her. And now, that was exactly what she needed to do._

-:-

Sam Owens would forever remember the feeling of sitting in a conference room filled with portable communications equipment that was only portable in the sense that it was not required to be nailed down anywhere, listening to Colonel Shrive conduct a military operation from a hospital using coordinates given to him by a fourteen-year-old boy trapped in a building by a group of Russians who had proven themselves more than capable of hurting and killing them without a second thought in an unauthorised operation that Sam had been completely cut out of. An unauthorised operation that had taken two people from this earth in the most literal way that Sam would ever be able to say those words to describe.

_“Echo Bravo One, what’s your position?”_

The radio that sat in the middle of the makeshift situation room – because although the Department of Energy seemed to have money to burn, they had settled for a secure conference room that could be locked with a key card when they’d built the hospital – gave Sam a sense of solemnity. He’d seen people die before – he’d watched his coworkers torn to pieces by monsters before almost being torn to pieces himself. He’d supervised military operations before – he’d never forget following a tactical team through a bunker beneath Starcourt, every single soldier prepared to use lethal force to protect him. But there was something about _this _operation, sending planes from a black site on Attu Island to a set of coordinates with the sole purpose of destroying a building and everyone in it, that stuck in his throat. Sam realised that he’d never ordered anyone’s death before.

And now he’d ordered thousands in the hope of saving millions.

_“We’re approaching the site now, sir,” _a voice came out of the radio. _“We’re about ten miles out.”_

“The coordinates may not be exact,” Sam said, pressing a finger down on a button. “Be sure to look around if you can’t find anything.”

_“Roger that.”_

Sam’s eyes fell shut as silence filled the room. The air felt thick, each breath feeling like he was inhaling molasses rather than oxygen, waiting, _waiting _for the confirmation that the coordinates were right, in which case Sam was going to need to order their deaths, or that they were wrong, in which case Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers had sacrificed themselves for nothing.

_“There’s definitely something here.”_

The tension in the air broke. Sam lifted his head, looking imploringly over at Shrive.

“You have your orders,” Shrive said solemnly.

_“Roger that. Commencing attack in T minus sixty seconds.”_

Sam tried to keep his eyes open, staring at the grain of the wood of the table in front of him. He followed the pattern as the sparse countdown got closer and closer to zero, until finally, the pilot was counting down every number from ten.

_“Nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one…”_

Zero.

_“Echo Bravo One, take the north side. Aim for the generators. Let’s see how these sons of bitches do without power in the Arctic circle.”_

_“Roger that. How much of this building do you want still standing when we’re done?”_

Shrive looked over at Sam, who swallowed as he reached over for the radio.

“Raze it to the ground,” Sam said clinically.

_“Roger that, sir. Going to the north side now-”_

_“Wait – we’ve got a bogey – Echo Bravo One, hold your course, I’ll cover you-”_

_“Hold on – I think I see something – is that a – _SHIT – _Shit – shit-”_

_“Evasive manoeuvres – they’ve got an anti-aircraft weapon-”_

_“We’ve got another bogey-”_

_“Tango Alpha Six, take out that airstrip. Echo Bravo One, stay the course, take out the generators, I’ll cover you and work on the anti-aircraft gun.”_

_“Roger that. Going for the generators now – making my approach now…”_

_“Nice.”_

_“Generators are down, sir-”_

_“Watch your six, there’s a bogey coming up hot behind you – SHIT! Echo Bravo One is down, sir – I repeat, Echo Bravo One is down – Tango Alpha Six, pull up, let’s deal with the bogeys in the sky.”_

_“Pulling up, sir. Let’s send these sons of bitches straight to hell.”_

_“Tango Alpha, I’ll draw them in, you take them out from behind.”_

_“On your six, sir.”_

_“I’ve got one on my tail, take him out.”_

_“On it, sir.”_

_“Tango Alpha, take him out!”_

_“I can’t get a clear shot!”_

_“Tan– SHIT – there’s another on me – ten o’clock-”_

_“I’ve got him-”_

_“Bogey is down, sir. Now for _God’s sake, _Tango Alpha Six, take this motherfucker on my tail out before I take _you _out!”_

_“I’ve got a shot!”_

_“Bogey is down, one left.”_

_“Yeah, and it’s on my tail, sir.”_

_“Roger that, Tango Alpha, coming up behind you. When I say now, turn and make your shot.”_

_“Roger that, sir.”_

_“I’m coming up behind – bogey has seen me – Tango Alpha, NOW!”_

_“Bogey is down, sir.”_

_“Tango Alpha, focus on the anti-aircraft gun. I’ll draw fire and focus on the building itself.”_

“The building is your priority, Major,” Shrive growled down the radio.

_“Roger that, sir.”_

_“You’re going pretty hot, sir.”_

_“I’ve got its attention. Tango Alpha, make your move.”_

_“Coming in now.”_

_“You waiting for an invitation, Tango Alpha? Take it out!”_

_“Sir, there’s an opening – just underneath the gun – there’s a light coming out-”_

_“You can see a light?”_

_“Yeah, if we get a missile in there, we might be able to take out the building-”_

_“Focus on the gun that’s trying to take out _me, _Tango Alpha. I’ll check this opening out.”_

_“Roger that, sir.”_

_“You were right, Tango Alpha, there’s an opening-”_

_“Anti-aircraft gun is down, sir.”_

_“I’ve got a little something extra for these Commie bastards – sir, do I have your permission to use it?”_

Shrive looked at Sam.

“Last chance to change your mind,” Shrive said.

Sam’s eyes fell closed as he saw in his mind’s eye the sight of Steve Harrington, hunched over himself as he’d recounted the events that had led him to join them. He saw Billy Hargrove, clinically describing how the Soviets had interrogated Steve for information on a fourteen-year-old girl. He remembered how the Russian soldier in Joyce Byers’ living room had gloated about how they’d made one of them scream. At best, the people in that building were complicit by inaction. At worst, they were… Sam didn’t want to think about what the worst was.

Sam gave Shrive a tight nod. Anyone in that building was either already dead or deserved to die.

“Light her up,” Shrive said.

_“Roger that – I’ve got a shot…”_

_“HOLY SHIT! What the fuck was _that?_”_

_“That wasn’t me – Tango Alpha, get out, pull back – we need to go!”_

“Is the target destroyed?” Shrive asked.

_“YES – yes – target’s destroyed – whatever they were doing – it just blew up – sky high – I’ve never seen an explosion like that – sir, were they building nuclear weapons there or something?”_

_“I wasn’t briefed about nuclear weapons – do we need to decontaminate or something? Am I going to die?”_

_“Tango Alpha, you’ll be fine, we have procedures to deal with that – but sir, _was _that a nuclear weapon?”_

Sam felt a wave of saddened relief wash over him as he looked over at Shrive.

“That’s need-to-know,” Shrive growled. “I need you to go back and check if the building’s completely destroyed.”

_“It _looked _pretty destroyed from where we were standing – whole thing was lit up in a bright white light. As I say – never seen an explosion like it.”_

“I need you to go back and check.”

_“Roger that, sir… yeah, building’s gone. There’s nothing left.”_

_“Literally, there’s nothing left. It’s like it’s been turned to dust or something. Seriously, _was _that a nuclear weapon or something we just destroyed?”_

“As I said, Tango Alpha Six, that’s need-to-know. But good job, boys. Come home.”

The radio fell silent, leaving Sam to run a hand through his hair as he closed his eyes.

“We had reports that there were prisoners of war in that place,” Sam breathed.

“They were as good as dead, Owens,” Shrive said. “They were never going to get out.”

“We could have _liberated _them,” Sam’s head snapped up towards Shrive. “Isn’t that what we’re _meant _to do? Aren’t we the _good _guys?”

“We _are _the good guys, Owens,” Shrive snapped. “What the hell are you talking about – _liberating _them? You think that was – what? _Auschwitz _or something? We didn’t have thousands of innocent people and days to march on the base – we barely had an hour, based on everything you said. For the attack that we put together, that was _really _successful. One American casualty and the destruction of the most dangerous operation that the Soviets have ever tried to execute? That’s a _win. _We don’t get victories like that very often, Owens.”

Sam looked up at Shrive, still not convinced. _Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington could well have been among the dead in different circumstances. What if there had been others?_

“Owens,” Shrive’s voice was surprisingly gentle as he walked towards Sam. “We did the right thing. _We _aren’t the ones who imprisoned them. We can’t always save everyone.”

Sam swallowed as he ran a hand over his face, his eyes falling shut as he tried to shut out the image of Shrive being _sympathetic. _For all that Shrive could talk about _doing the right thing, _and the _victory _that they’d just won – a victory he’d probably recount at great length when presented with a medal or a ribbon or _whatever _someone was given after coordinating an airstrike – Sam couldn’t shake the cold, sobering truth that he’d just given the orders to destroy a building and everyone inside. He felt sick to his stomach – they’d probably had _families _– there had been those who were _innocent _– he’d just torn apart hundreds of lives with tragedy and he’d done so from the comfort of a nice little boardroom with central heating and a vending machine down the hall for his convenience –

There was a sharp knock on the door before it opened, the person on the other side barely waiting for an invitation. A man dressed in a camouflage uniform appeared – Sam wondered briefly if it was the same person who had been drafted to bring all the equipment into the board room.

“Sir,” the man said. “You asked me to report – there’s – there’s something strange going on at the Lab, sir – you’d better come take a look.”

-:-

The whole building shook with the crack that deafened Billy. The Russian in the doorway stumbled and fell to the floor – Billy only managed to keep his feet through sheer force of will, countering the sudden lurch with a lunge towards Buckley who _really _couldn’t take another hit to the head. She clutched desperately at his bicep, fingers digging into his arm through his jacket.

The room kept shaking like an earthquake had hit them. Billy shot a terrified glance over at Max, still under the table – they’d had their fair share of mild tremors in San Francisco and she’d never handled them well, but _this _was something new entirely – this was everything Max had been afraid of with every mild tremor – she looked out at him, wide blue eyes terrified under the table as they heard the sound of stone cracking and breaking apart.

The Russians looked equally baffled by the strange turn of events. He saw them look towards each other, the threat posed by Billy no longer anywhere near the top of their priorities.

_“What the hell?”_

_“I don’t know – is something wrong with the Gate?”_

_“I don’t want to get turned to dust finding out. Sound the alarm. We need to evacuate.”_

The brief exchange sent the soldiers staggering down the hallway as best they could. A part of Billy briefly, _fleetingly _considered following them – _stopping _them somehow – from doing _what? _Leaving the building?

_If they were evacuating, they weren’t hunting them._

He glanced over at the others as he tried to keep Buckley on her feet. They had identical expressions of alarm – all save Wheeler, who seemed to understand better than anyone what was happening –

“It’s _El!_” he yelled over the sound of breaking stone. “She’s opening the Gate!”

“Does she _normally _cause buildings to collapse in the process?” Buckley screamed.

“What if she’s trying to pull the Mind Flayer through?” Byers said. “The building’s not big enough for it-”

Byers’ thesis was broken off by the sound of stone cracking, followed by a resounding crash that shook the building.

“Whatever she’s doing, she’s tearing the Lab apart!” Dustin yelled over the noise. “The structural integrity of the building won’t last if she wants to pull a massive shadow monster through the Gate. She’ll bring this place down on top of us!”

Unbidden, the image of a huge shadow looming over Starcourt filled Billy’s mind. Even if it _wasn’t _solid, even if it _could _contort itself to fit through the Gate, it would fill the entire height of the Lab at its full size, and even _that _would be pressing it against the ceiling – it would break through the roof and bring it down on top of –

_Steve._

“Buckley, get them the hell out of here!” Billy yelled at her. “Don’t wait for me – just _go! _Go!”

He tore out of the room, sheer adrenaline burning through his entire body. Mike watched him leave, his heart thundering in his chest.

_El was there._

_She was battling the Mind Flayer._

_He couldn’t let her face it alone._

He pushed himself to his feet as he scrambled out from under the table. Robin barely had a chance to find her footing, yelling out a half-formed protest as he sprinted out of the room after Billy. He didn’t have a plan, he didn’t know what he was going to do, what he _could _do against that – but even if all he could do was stand by her side, he wouldn’t let El do it alone.

-:-

The guns and flashlights moved away from Nancy and trained themselves on the building above them. She and Jonathan turned around at the sound of stone cracking – the building seemed to be imploding before their very eyes –

Every eye seemed to be on the Lab – the Russians began speaking again in words that Nancy couldn’t understand – she didn’t miss the way their voices became more agitated – she glanced over at Jonathan and saw that he was thinking of the same thing that she was. They _needed _to get into the Lab. Her hands went to the gun at her side – she wanted to be ready –

One of the Russians suddenly swung a gun back towards them – her eyes widened slightly at the almost casual way the man seemed to regard it –

_Sometimes it’s our only chance._

Billy’s words to her the previous night rang in her ears as the gun went off in her hand. The noise she made was lost in the sound of the gunshot. She would never forget how the man in front of her fell, a puppet with its strings cut, his face obscured as his head snapped back with the force of the bullet – shouts erupted around her – Jonathan’s hand was on her arm – tugging her _towards _the man who had just tried to kill them – taking the opening that she had granted them – pulling her out of the circle –

Jonathan tugged her up the hill as she forced her legs into cooperating – pushing her up the hill towards the parking lot – he pushed her down as gunshots echoed behind them – they scrambled up the last of the hill and across the parking lot – they sprinted past the unconscious guard on the floor and into the building.

The hallway was empty as they sprinted towards the East Stairwell. Nancy burst through the door before jumping back at the sight that greeted them on the floor.

A Demogorgon lay in the middle of the floor, face slack, its skin blistered and cracked, as though it had been caught in intense heat. Jonathan came up alongside her, looking at it as the ceiling above them gave a worrying crack.

“I think it’s dead,” Jonathan breathed. “Come on – we need to go!”

They started sprinting up the stairs. Nancy paused at the first door they came to –

“I think it’s on the second floor,” Jonathan said.

She nodded, taking off after him as he took the stairs two at a time. The door below them burst open a moment later – she spared a brief glance over her shoulder to see two Russian soldiers running down the stairs – they caught sight of them – Nancy’s eyes locked onto the green depths that gave her an unreadable look before a word in Russian from the other pulled his gaze away – the soldiers ran down the stairs without a backwards glance at them. Evidently, evacuation was a higher priority at this point.

Suddenly, a pulsing red light illuminated the stairwell. An alarm wailed overhead – Nancy had every confidence that the alarm meant nothing good – she sprinted up the last of the stairs and burst through a door on the second floor.

The ceiling above her head gave a nasty groan as the sound of cracking stone continued to echo around them. She sprinted down the corridor, turning right at the end of the hallway – she had only the vaguest memory of where she was going based on a tour that Owens had given her a lifetime ago –

Jonathan yanked on her arm as they approached another bend, hearing something that she hadn’t. A soft, guttural growl sounded just beyond the corner – Nancy took a step backwards, getting the gun ready – the _Russians_ may not see them as a priority, but she doubted they’d be so lucky with monsters. She took a step back as quietly as possible, not daring to take her eyes away from the corner –

An echoing crack sounded around them, breaking down the wall and the ceiling – she glanced up with the faintest gasp as dust fell around her –

Jonathan’s hand found its way onto her arm as she stepped back in alarm. She turned towards him to look at him – the fear she felt reflected in his face – the momentary relief suddenly fell from his face as horror took over his features –

She spun around at the growl. Her eyes widened as she saw a monster torn straight from her nightmares. Grey skin mottled with scars, a flower of teeth towering above her – she raised the gun –

The first shot did next to nothing. The creature flinched slightly in surprise as the bullet glanced off the Demogorgon’s shoulder – the claw raised –

The quiet sound of cracking plaster and concrete seemed to be getting louder – she glanced towards the wall and saw the crack that had appeared a moment ago reach the floor –

Jonathan suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her back as the sound finally reached its peak. The floor gave way – Nancy jumped as Jonathan pulled her away from the Demogorgon. He pulled her backwards, barely succeeding in keeping his own feet as the floor beneath them gave out – the Demogorgon plunged down a storey – but it wasn’t gone – it took a swipe at Nancy’s legs as she struggled to find her feet on the crumbling stone –

The Demogorgon caught her ankle but didn’t find its grip as Jonathan pulled her onto the floor. The concrete beneath their feet was cracking as she struggled to stay upright, relying on Jonathan to pull her along – she shot a glance over her shoulder at the Demogorgon – it was still hot on their tail –

The ceiling gave another alarming groan – above them, it seemed to be cracking – huge fissures were carving their way across the ceiling – through the light fixtures – a fluorescent lamp fell from the ceiling and swung across their path – the sound was getting louder – they were going to get buried under the rubble if it gave way.

The sobering realization gave Nancy the final urge to push herself towards the end of the corridor – the cracks in the ceiling above them seemed to stop about ten feet ahead of them – if they could get past it –

_CRACK!_

Jonathan pulled her the last few feet as the ceiling gave way. A shower of dust and stone poured down over them – she glanced over her shoulder to see the Demogorgon buried under rubble as the whole ceiling came down – the floor beneath her feet gave way –

“Nancy – _jump!_”

Jonathan’s shout echoed around her – she could barely see him through the dust – his hand never left hers – she pushed herself off the collapsing floor that crumbled under the weight of the building that seemed to be coming down on top of it – she felt her chest hit something – Jonathan’s hand was pulling her up – _she was back in the Upside Down – Jonathan was pulling her through the tiny aperture in the tree trunk –_

She collapsed on top of him, shaking, as the world finally stopped moving. Jonathan was underneath her, his arms around her as they both gasped for air. She didn’t remember closing her eyes but she kept them shut, feeling Jonathan’s heartbeat in his chest beneath her next to her own. She felt his arms around her, the slow, steady expansion of his ribs encouraging hers to match it as she regained control of her breathing, blissfully, _mercifully _alive.

“…I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’ve got you…”

She realized he’d been talking all this time, breathing desperate reassurances into her ear. She finally cracked her eyes open, feeling tears fall from her eyes as she shifted her weight to one side. Jonathan’s arms never let her go, staying wrapped around her as she finally surveyed what had moments ago been a corridor.

The floor had cracked completely as the floors above had caved in. They could see what had provided their salvation – a particularly sturdy looking metal framework that had been reinforced with concrete had become exposed in the wreckage. It was bent slightly, warped by the sudden collapse of part of the building, but it remained for the most part intact, holding back the destruction – at least for now. Beyond it, there was nothing but rubble. They could just see through the dust an opening to the top of the rocks, but the mist of fine white powder that covered them both was impenetrable.

The cracking noises around them hadn’t stopped. A particularly alarming groan beneath their feet had Nancy starting down the corridor.

“We should go,” she breathed. “We should find the others – Mike and Will and everyone else.”

“How are we going to get out?” Jonathan asked as he took off after her. “Do you think the stairs collapsed? Is there another way to the exit?”

“We’ll work that out later,” Nancy said. “Right now, we need to find the others.”

Any fears that they still harbored that they might still be hunted evaporated as they rounded the corner. A group of soldiers barely gave them a passing glance as they sprinted past them, their priorities entirely focused on getting out. If Nancy and Jonathan wanted to stay and get buried in the collapsing building, the Russians were not going to stop them.

“You’re sure it’s on this floor?” Jonathan gasped as they sprinted down the corridor. The only light came from the flashing red lights as the alarm wailed around them.

“Yes,” Nancy said reflexively, but her confidence was waning. “I’m… I’m _positive_… Second floor, east wing.”

“Nancy, half the east wing just collapsed,” Jonathan slowed to a halt.

Nancy staggered to a stop at a fork in the corridor, looking around. She _would not _consider the possibility that Jonathan was hinting at.

“They weren’t there,” she said determinedly.

She caught him looking at her as she tried to decide on a direction. He had a sympathetic look on his face, but it had a shadow of the same look he’d given her two and a half years ago when she’d told him that she was _‘sure he’s fine, he’s a smart kid,’ _over a poster of Will – a hope in his eyes that he couldn’t quite let die but it hurt to keep alive.

“Nancy, we’ve got to face facts – they might not have made it out-”

“We’d have seen them,” she snapped. “We’d have passed them. They’re okay – they _have _to be-”

_“Nancy!”_

The relief that flooded through her at Will’s shout to her left rushed through every particle of her body. She turned to see them sprinting towards him, Robin, Max, Lucas and Dustin in tow. Robin didn’t look entirely steady on her feet, Dustin holding her arm trying to keep her upright.

Jonathan rushed forwards at the shout, closing the gap between himself and Nancy as he rounded the corner, the relief that Nancy felt mirrored on his face.

“Thank God,” Jonathan gasped as Nancy looked over the others, counting them in her head. “Half the east wing just collapsed – we thought you’d been caught in it-”

“You clearly were,” Lucas pointed out, his eyes raking over their clothes and faces, still covered in dust.

“Are you okay?” Will asked Jonathan quietly.

“More okay than the Demogorgon buried under it,” Jonathan tried for a smile that didn’t reach his eyes –

“Where’s Mike?” Nancy asked suddenly.

She was met with a very painful silence. Nobody quite met her eyes, save for Will, who looked at her apologetically.

“Will,” Nancy said in a tone of forced calm that didn’t quite hide the hitch in her breathing, the soft tremor in her voice or the slight rise in tone. “Where’s Mike?”

-:-

El fought to her feet, blindfold still on as she stretched out her arms to unseen force beyond the Gate. Blood was pouring from her nose – Steve could see glimpses of it coming from her ears as well – she let out a cry as whatever she was fighting was taking its toll. The crack in the wall stretched up to the ceiling above them – she was breaking the building apart – Steve could hear the foundations breaking beneath him – the ceiling breaking above him – the building was being torn apart as the gap in the floor widened, stretching back as stone fell away from them – and at the epicenter of it all stood El, blindfold still in place.

Ozerov recovered his footing nearby, but his attention was no longer on Steve. The eyes blackened by the monster controlling his every move were focused entirely on El – a low, feral growl escaped Ozerov’s lips as the monster inside realized what was happening – Ozerov lunged towards her on unsteady feet, the ground beneath them still shaking –

Steve didn’t think. He charged straight at Ozerov. Both lost their footing completely as Steve collided with him. They stumbled to one side, the force of Steve’s charge sending him rolling across the floor. Ozerov found his feet first, turning back to El, regarding Steve as little more than an annoyance, but Steve was closer to El, scrambling between them as he staggered upright.

Ozerov glared at Steve, a flash of annoyance and panic crossing his eyes as he realized that he was going to need to deal with the nuisance that Steve was providing – he’d need to do it _soon _if he wanted to stop El – the panic gave way to raw fury as he stepped towards Steve –

The world lurched suddenly as the wall behind them started to give way. Debris started falling from the wall as the Gate seemed to widen – the red light that lit up a wall of the Lab started to grow – to spread – the concrete in the wall seemed to start to fall away –

Steve dived out of the way at the sound of cracking above him – a huge piece of concrete fell from one of the upper floors and smashed down through the ceiling – the floor immediately in front of the wall gave way as the rubble from the ceiling and upper walls came crashing down, a landslide that kept going down to the bedrock of the Lab. Steve barely recovered his footing as he worked his way back to El – a chasm opened up between what was left of the floor and the Gate as rubble continued to fall from above as the Gate widened beyond a crack to a gaping hole in the wall, stretching upwards to the top floors of the Lab and sideways towards the far reaches of the building.

Steve turned around, wincing at the bright wall of light that greeted him as he looked over at El – the floor above seemed to be caving in – part of the ceiling above her cracked – he jumped forwards and pulled her back as the debris crashed down onto where she had been standing moments earlier – she staggered back but she never lowered her arms, never took the blindfold off, all the while blood poured down her face from her nose while she kept screaming.

Suddenly, the light from the wall seemed to dim. Steve’s head snapped up at the sudden darkness – it was as though the light beyond had suddenly been turned out – but the Gate was still there – the wall was still completely cracked – the strange membrane was still stretched across it – there was something beyond the Gate blocking the light –

Steve ducked to the ground as something burst out from behind the Gate. A huge black shape started pouring through the hole in the wall – a wall of smoke – a wall of _shadow_ – he grabbed El and pulled her to his chest as he turned his back against the oncoming darkness, trying to act as a shield between her and it, a barrier, hunched over to protect her from as many angles as possible – he closed his eyes as the shadow approached –

The collision never came.

He felt El move in his arms. Steve opened his eyes as she pulled herself upright away from him, a hand stretched out over his shoulder. Her other hand came up and pulled the blindfold away from her face. Her eyes flashed with a fire that burned brightly in her eyes, a white-hot rage, a determination borne out of love for the people that she would protect. Blood was coming thick and fast from her nose – not _just _her nose, he could see it dripping from her ears as well – Steve had never seen her like this – he’d never seen her use her powers to this extent – _surely it couldn’t be good for her? _– her mouth opened in a gut-wrenching scream of anger.

The Shadow coming towards them seemed to part like the red sea at her cry, breaking against an unseen force as it spilled into the room. The Shadow spilled into the room in a wave and broke off the walls and curled back in on itself, the only area untouched being the V that El had granted herself and Steve, the water breaking off it like a jetty into the room. Steve looked at El in awe as he ducked out from behind her as the Shadow broke off the walls, spreading up the walls, curving away as a many-legged creature took form above her, the Shadow still spilling out over the floor as Steve realized what was happening.

He looked over at Ozerov, who had been frozen in place, staring at the wall with a look of rage to match El’s as the Gate had turned dark. As the Shadow continued to spill into the room, the light slowly began to rekindle itself, growing more and more as the waves of darkness crashed into the room. Ozerov weathered them, standing in the center of the smoke as it broke over him, splashed and spilled up his legs, washing over him before finding its way into his eyes, nose, ears and mouth. The blood vessels in his body turned black as the smoke continued to wash over him, pouring into his body as the skin turned an unnatural shade of grey. The Shadow that flooded the floor stopped pouring through the Gate like a dam burst, washing over the floor and pouring into Ozerov, pouring up the walls to the columns of black that were meeting at the ceiling like a great cathedral dome, coming together at a single point as a huge shadow solidified into a shape that Steve had not seen since lying on a stone slab outside of a ruined, twisted version of Starcourt.

The Mind Flayer stood above them, inky black and every bit as terrifying as Steve remembered.

El looked up, turning back and standing between it and the Gate. The fiery red light still illuminated the room – in the absence of any _other _light, it was all that they could see by. El stood, silhouetted by the wall of light, facing the oncoming Shadow, the last line of defence against the darkness that threatened to swallow the world whole.

Steve, however, was focused on the threat that Ozerov still posed. The darkness that poured into Ozerov had left him looking less human than Steve had ever seen him. He took a step towards El, the burning glare made more sinister by his pupils so dilated that his irises seemed non-existent, the black running through the man’s blood vessels turning the whites of his eyes grey. Steve, once again, placed himself between Ozerov and El, a determined look on his face as his hand reached towards his back to feel for the flamethrower.

Ozerov dived forwards as Steve’s hand went back. Steve was caught off-guard, sent sprawling onto his back as the flamethrower’s strap slipped from his shoulder. The weapon was cast to one side as Ozerov pinned Steve to the floor. A blow slammed into Steve’s stomach – he couldn’t breathe – the air left his lungs at the force of the punch, a level of strength only possible from the supernatural being residing in Ozerov’s body. Steve saw Ozerov draw his fist back again, his other hand squarely pinning Steve’s chest to the floor –

Steve’s arms flew up to intercept the punch, fighting to get his legs out from under Ozerov. Steve pushed the descending fist to one side as he rolled with it, his knee finally finding purchase on the floor as he pushed himself up onto it. Ozerov was sent rolling to one side as Steve got out from underneath him – he pushed himself up onto one knee –

He didn’t make it any further as Ozerov grabbed at him. Steve swung his whole body sideways to try and move himself out of the way, but Ozerov grabbed his arm and pulled him close to his chest. He was twisting it backwards, behind Steve’s back, up – up – up – the joint wasn’t going to hold out much longer against the unnatural angle –

A huge chunk of rock crashed down near them as the Mind Flayer drew itself up towards the ceiling, breaking through what was left of the floor above. It was only the enormous cage of its many legs that protected them from the worst of the debris that fell down from above as the Mind Flayer drew up one of its legs to try and bring it down on top of El – Steve could do nothing to stop it – even if the flamethrower _was _within arm’s reach, it wouldn’t be enough to save her –

But _El _was. She lifted her hands with a cry and the Mind Flayer’s leg broke against the unseen force like it had just smacked into stone. It jerked its leg back – Steve had never _seen _the Mind Flayer _jerk _before – maybe Will’s theory about its presence in this world was right – but Steve had bigger problems – Ozerov had let go on the Mind Flayer’s impact with El’s powers, but he had by no means _stopped._

El screamed as she threw the Mind Flayer’s leg to one side with an invisible wave of force. Ozerov stumbled – Steve used the momentary loss of balance to scramble to his feet – Ozerov flung a hand out to catch him – he caught Steve’s ankle – Steve stumbled, but managed to stay upright – he jerked his foot forwards, trying to break it free of Ozerov’s grip –

El flung both her hands straight up into the air towards the Mind Flayer’s abdomen. Something caught its stomach – the focal point of the many-legged cage suddenly didn’t seem quite so dark – the tiniest glow of a white light started to appear –

The light held Steve’s gaze for a fraction of a second – a fraction of a second too long. Ozerov gave an almighty tug on Steve’s ankle, sending him crashing down to the floor. Ozerov pulled him along the floor – Steve tried to find some purchase in the cracked floor – his fingers caught in the fault lines only to be ripped out before he could get a grip –

Ozerov pulled himself above Steve – he kept Steve pinned to the floor as he got to his feet – a foot found its way onto Steve’s shoulder, pinning him to the floor. Steve swung his arm around, trying to catch him off-balance, but Ozerov bent down and caught his wrist, flinging him onto his back as he slammed his foot down onto Steve’s fingers, crushing them under the hard heel. Steve let out a cry of agony as Ozerov put his whole weight onto the heel – it was all Steve could do to swing his leg around, hoping to catch the back of Ozerov’s knee –

The light in the Mind Flayer’s stomach suddenly flickered and dimmed as a huge, shadowy leg came crashing down towards El. Her focus was forced away from the light – she flung out a hand to stop the oncoming storm – she staggered back – Ozerov regained his balance as Steve’s leg was met with unwavering strength and sinew, the epitome of _planted feet_ –

A gunshot rang out across the room. Steve’s head snapped sideways towards the ruined door, his heart soaring as Billy appeared, gun trained on Ozerov and a determined fire in his eyes.

The bullet glanced off Ozerov’s shoulder. Ozerov staggered back, stumbling slightly – above them, the Mind Flayer seemed to stumble itself – its legs seemed to jerk downwards, bowing outwards ever so slightly before it drew itself further up –

Steve pulled himself to his feet as Billy fired another shot at Ozerov. The bullet missed altogether as Ozerov jumped to one side. Steve grabbed his own fallen gun as he scrambled back towards El, instinct telling him to stand between her and Ozerov. Behind him, El raised a hand again – the white light, the tiny spark of hope in the crushing, swirling darkness above them rekindled – Ozerov hissed slightly, a hand flying to his own stomach – and at last, Steve _understood._

_They were still connected._

The realisation jolted him into action. He aimed the gun at Ozerov, firing off a shot. The movement gave Ozerov enough time to duck out of the way, the shot smacking into the wall behind him. Billy fired another shot – it grazed Ozerov’s head, sending him crashing to the ground –

Above them, the Mind Flayer twisted slightly, its legs bending as it jerked in a movement similar to Ozerov’s fall. El let out a desperate scream as the white light in its abdomen started to grow – blood poured down from her nose and ears – the whites of her eyes were turning red as she expended more strength than she had ever needed before –

The sound of footsteps at the door tore at Billy and Steve’s attention as – of all people – _Mike _came sprinting into the room. His eyes widened at the scene before him – Billy and Steve facing down a man who looked altogether inhuman, pale grey skin with black blood vessels clear in the exposed skin, and El – _El, _standing in the centre of the room, arms stretched as blood poured freely down her face – down her neck – her arms raised to the monster Mike had only ever seen in a drawing, but instantly recognisable, columns of smoke, a great black spider that absorbed all light that touched it, save for the one light inside it – the light that _El _had put there, the light that had taken El once before in a flurry of black flakes and blinding white, the light that was causing El _so much pain _to produce – her scream was all he could hear – _it was killing her…_

“EL!” he screamed before he could stop himself.

El’s eyes snapped towards the new arrival, her focus torn away for just a moment by the only voice that would possibly have been able to get through to her. Her eyes widened for just a fraction of a second – the light in the monster’s stomach dimmed –

Ozerov stumbled gracelessly to his feet while Billy and Steve’s focus was torn away by Mike’s shout – Steve glanced back at the sudden movement, but it was too late – Ozerov grabbed the gun in Steve’s hands and yanked it downwards – Steve fought to keep his grip on it, but he lost his balance as Ozerov swung his knee into the back of Steve’s – Steve felt his knee give out at an unnatural angle as he crashed down onto it – the impact sent shockwaves through his body as he struggled to keep his hands on the gun as Ozerov twisted the barrel upwards – Steve realised what was about to happen a second before it did –

The gun went off just as Steve flung his head out of the path of the barrel. The bullet sailed harmlessly into the air but the movement had Steve on his back – his head hit the ground with a thud that sent stars across his vision as Ozerov pulled his whole weight onto Steve –

As soon as Steve started to struggle under the weight pinning him down, the weight fell off him to one side. Steve hadn’t heard a bang but understood a moment later – Billy, rather than risking hurting Steve in an unpredictable struggle, had flung his whole body at Ozerov – the pair were grappling – the force of Billy’s charge sent them rolling across the floor as Steve’s vision slowly righted itself –

A roar tore Steve’s attention away – a terrifying roar that had Steve’s chest instinctively clenching – he turned towards the door – _Mike was still standing there –_

“Mike, _get away from the door!_” Steve yelled.

Perhaps Mike had finally learnt to listen – perhaps he had heard the roar and drawn the same conclusion – but Mike jumped out of the way as a Demogorgon crashed through the opening, skidding slightly with the force of its pounce into the room. The roar turned into a cacophony as the opposite door suddenly crashed in – one Demogorgon turned into three – which turned into four – which, as though one wasn’t enough – turned into _far _more than Steve felt comfortable with.

The Demogorgon closest to Mike turned its fluttering face towards him – Steve felt his heart stop as Mike faced down the Demogorgon, the scream that preceded a kill undoubtedly coming – _Mike had nothing to defend himself with –_

Steve fired a shot at the Demogorgon – the Demogorgon turned away from Mike and rounded on Steve as the bullet glanced off its flank – Mike stood frozen in place as he looked from the Demogorgon to Steve to Billy to _El, _his eyes never left El…

“Mike, get out of here!” Steve yelled.

But Mike didn’t move. He stayed there, staring at El, unable to help but unwilling – _incapable _of leaving her. Steve aimed another shot at the Demogorgon, keeping its attention away from Mike, keeping its attention on Steve – the Demogorgons on the other side of the room were advancing on El, reinforcements called to help the Mind Flayer obliterate this one threat to its very existence. The light still shone above them – El’s whole focus was torn away from Mike, her hands in the air as she kept the white light alive, the light that had taken El from Mike once before in a flurry of shadow…

And all the while, Billy was still grappling with Ozerov. Steve could barely spare him more than a passing prayer with a glance, he could do nothing to help, not without leaving El to the mercy of the Demogorgons – one on the other side of the room was bearing down on her – Steve began to run – to _try _and get between them – he wasn’t going to make it – he fired off shot after shot after shot to try and slow it down – to draw its attention away from her – onto _him _– the gun began to click uselessly as the trigger did nothing, all bullets expended – _there was nothing he could do _–

A gunshot, a bang slightly different to the sound of the gun in Steve’s hand, echoed from the door, catching the Demogorgon in the back of the head. It fell to the ground, stumbling as the latest bullet had succeeded where Steve’s had failed, a smear of dark blood from a nick in the back of its head marking the floor as it got back to its feet and screamed at the shooter –

Steve could honestly say that he had never been so relieved to see Nancy in his life. She aimed another shot at the Demogorgon’s mouth without hesitation. The bullet vanished into the monster’s mouth, soaring straight through into the soft tissue at the back of its throat. The Demogorgon fell to the floor with a resounding thud as Jonathan, Robin and the rest of the Party came into the room from the door directly opposite Mike.

The hairs on the back of Will’s neck seemed to be doing their utmost to pull themselves out of his skin by their roots as he looked up into the ruin of the Lab at the monster that had plagued his nightmares. He felt Jonathan’s breath hitch in his chest, a vice-like hand finding his arm. Lucas’ Wrist Rocket fell uselessly to his side as he, Dustin and Max all stared up at the Shadow towering above them, fear evident on their faces at the sight of Will’s most terrifying drawing come to life.

They were not given long in their horror as Nancy’s shout rang out across the room.

“Mike!”

Her shout had done what Steve’s had altogether failed to do. He was pulled from his trance of staring at El and sprinted across the room towards them. He ran over to Will as Nancy and Robin moved forwards to intercept the Demogorgons still bearing down on El. Jonathan glanced fleetingly around the room for something – _anything _– that he could use to help them – he was rewarded with the sight of the flamethrower, still cast aside on the floor.

He sprinted towards it – a Demogorgon caught sight of him moving and lunged at him – Jonathan ducked underneath the claw that swung around to meet him – a gunshot from behind him told him that Nancy had seen what he was going for – she was keeping an eye on him as he closed the last few feet between himself and the black weapon lying on the ground – he grabbed the strap and looped it over his shoulder as he hauled it up – _it was heavier than he expected –_

“Jonathan!”

His head snapped towards Steve’s shout as a small, brightly coloured object soared through the air towards him. Jonathan fumbled the catch but grabbed the lighter that Steve had just tossed him.

“Dial on the side, light the nozzle, point and _shoot,_” Steve instructed.

Jonathan ran his hand over the side of the weapon until he found the small dial set just above the gas cylinder. A soft hissing noise came out of the front – Jonathan fumbled with the lighter as his eyes found the small black nozzle that the hissing seemed to be coming from – a spark finally caught the gas, creating a small, steady blue flame –

_Point and shoot._

He swung his whole body around towards a Demogorgon that came in from the far door that lay in complete ruins on the floor. He aimed the barrel towards it, his hands finding the trigger –

A huge jet of fire shot across the room as he pulled the trigger right back. The Demogorgon jumped backwards as the flames shot across the room, sending Nancy, who was dangerously close to the path of the fire, staggering backwards with the heat of it. She shot him an altogether unimpressed look and Jonathan vowed to ease up on the trigger.

As Jonathan, Nancy and Robin formed their own wall around El, Steve turned his attention back to Billy as he fitted a fresh clip into his gun. Billy was holding his own, but Steve could recognise the slight changes in his movements that told him that Billy was tiring. He still hadn’t managed to get to his feet for any length of time, but he had succeeded in preventing Ozerov from doing the same. The gun had fallen to the wayside, forgotten as Billy’s hand grabbed the fist that was descending towards his face and twisting it around – there was a cracking sound but the pain that should have come with it didn’t seem to phase Ozerov in the slightest –

Steve aimed a shot at Ozerov’s side as he sprinted towards them, kicking Billy’s gun back over to them. Rather than tackle Ozerov, Steve aimed a shot at Ozerov’s side, sending him stumbling sideways as the bullet grazed Ozerov’s back, a streak of blood, blackened by the Mind Flayer, splattering across the floor beyond. Steve had aimed high to avoid hitting Billy, but it wasn’t the hit he’d been hoping for.

It did, however, have the effect of sending Ozerov stumbling off Billy, giving Billy a chance to twist around and grab the gun that Ozerov had forced him to drop minutes earlier. He scrambled to his feet at the same time as Ozerov – Steve sent a bullet towards Ozerov but it went wide – Ozerov ducked instinctively before leering at them.

The Mind Flayer above them moved. Will’s heart leapt into his mouth as he watched it take a step, immediately understanding what was happening – like he had known without learning over a year ago, he instinctively understood what the Mind Flayer was trying to do.

“It’s trying to go back through the Gate!” he hissed at Mike as Lucas bent down to grab a small bit of fallen concrete for his Wrist Rocket.

Mike’s head snapped towards him, fear and panic evident in his eyes. Will met his gaze, forcing back the tears that threatened to swallow his voice. He hoped his mom would understand – he hoped _Jonathan _would understand…

“El needs to close the Gate,” he said thickly to Mike.

“Will it stop the Mind Flayer and the Demogorgons?” Dustin asked. There was sympathy in his eyes, a flicker of understanding at Will’s words and just _what _they meant to him – by all accounts, the Gate, _this _Gate, here and now, was Hopper and Joyce’s last chance to come home. If they left it any longer then the Russian Army beyond would undoubtedly kill them.

“I – I don’t know,” Will muttered. “But if the Mind Flayer gets back through… We won’t be able to do this again, it won’t _let _us do it again. If it gets trapped on _this _side… we might have a chance of stopping it once and for all.”

Mike’s eyes were wide as he looked at Will – Mike had been the biggest advocator of getting Hopper and Joyce back, even more so than Will – Mike would quite simply do _anything _for Will, he had proven that time and time again – even ending things with El had been motivated more by what El had done to Will than any betrayal of trust on his own part, he had known without asking what recklessly opening Gates in the woods _meant _to Will – but Will was telling him here and now to let it go – not to fight for something already lost – because the truth that Will had struggled with was starting to sink in – the Gate had been open for almost ten minutes now – by Steve and Billy’s description, Hopper and his mom hadn’t been that far away from it when they’d turned off the machine – if they hadn’t made it back by now, then maybe there was a _reason…_

With physical effort, Mike turned away from Will’s face and looked over at El.

“El!” he called. “Close the Gate!”

Her hands never dropped but her head snapped towards Mike, a look of pure shock on her face at the instruction. She looked at him questioningly, an accusatory hint of betrayal in the glare she sent his way.

“El, you have to close the Gate!” Mike called.

El was shaking her head, tears pouring from her bloodshot eyes. Her arms started to shake as she looked defiantly at Mike, because she _couldn’t _do it, she _couldn’t, _she couldn’t lose Hopper and Joyce, she couldn’t bear for her family to be fractured and broken again, not after it had become whole again – she let out a defiant scream as anger shot through her like lightning – she turned her attention back to the white light that she had been trying to grow to extinguish the darkness like she’d extinguished the Demogorgon – Kali had told her to use her anger – she was feeling anger now – because how could Mike ask her to do this? Her vision blurred red – _literally _red – she felt something thicker, more tacky than water run down her face as the light started to grow again –

“It’s the only way to end this!” Mike screamed, horrified by the sight – blood poured down El’s face from her eyes as blood vessels burst, deep red tears a reflection of a sight he’d only seen once before, as government agents began to drop dead in the hallways of Hawkins Middle School mere moments before the Demogorgon attacked – _he would not see that happen to El._

Jonathan, Nancy and Robin had become aware of the conversation. Jonathan glanced over at Will, a confused look in his eyes. Will looked back at him, the agony he felt reflected in Jonathan’s face as Will gave him a tiny nod. He saw Jonathan’s heart break at the tiny motion.

Billy and Steve jumped as one of the Mind Flayer’s legs came crashing down less than three feet away from where Steve was standing. He spun around instinctively, his attention torn away for that crucial moment as Ozerov closed the gap between them –

Billy staggered back as Ozerov’s hands closed around his neck. He aimed the gun upwards blindly, hoping to catch Ozerov in the head or possibly even the arms but as his airway closed, the bullet sailed into the air. Ozerov kept the pressure on Billy’s neck up as his hand went towards the gun, ripping it from his hand and throwing it towards the Gate, down into the crevice in the ground where it landed out of reach on the floor below.

Steve started to run towards Billy as Ozerov’s hand choked him – Billy’s face was turning pale – his whole body was going slack as Ozerov hefted him off the ground – Steve had seen Ozerov kill Stepanov all those months ago on that fateful day where he’d almost lost Billy once before – but a scream from behind him tore at his attention –

Jonathan realised a split second too late that he’d been still for too long. A Demogorgon jumped forwards, catching him in the chest – the flamethrower flew to one side as the claws smacked down on his arm, breaking his grip, but as soon as he felt himself land on the ground, the weight shifted off him as the Demogorgon kept going. His mind took a moment to catch up as Mike let out a desperate scream –

_“EL!”_

Steve turned his head to see the Demogorgon tearing towards El – Jonathan was scrambling to his feet – Nancy was shooting at it but it was ignoring the bullets as effectively as it had ignored Jonathan – Robin was moving towards it but she wouldn’t get there in time – Steve skidded around, hesitating for a split second – he couldn’t let Billy die – but if _El _died then Billy was as good as dead anyway –

_Billy – El – _

The Demogorgon was getting closer to El –

Something sailed through the air next to him, flying through the Gate towards them. Steve ducked out of the way as two figures landed on the edge of the cracked floor in a jump that altogether lacked finesse but got them to where they needed to be. Ozerov dropped Billy as he took in the new arrivals, and Steve couldn’t help the smile that broke out over his face at the sight of who it was.

Hopper and Joyce straightened up as Hopper sent a burst of gunfire towards the Demogorgon bearing down on El without a moment’s hesitation. The Demogorgon recoiled under the gunfire, backing up as Hopper rushed forwards. Joyce tossed him what Steve recognised as a taser identical to the one that had been standard issue for the Russian soldiers as she pulled out her own. A white light erupted through the air as the Demogorgon closest to El fell dead and Joyce ran over to Jonathan, shooting another Demogorgon as it approached Jonathan, giving him a chance to get up. El’s face lit up with renewed determination as she turned back to the white light in the depths of the Mind Flayer’s belly – it began to grow once more.

Steve turned towards Ozerov as Billy crumpled to the floor, gasping for air. Steve tried to aim a shot at him but before he could pull the trigger, Ozerov lunged forwards, catching the gun as Steve swung it up. Ozerov twisted Steve’s body to one side, kicking Steve in the back of the knee as he went crashing to the ground. Steve wrenched the gun from Ozerov’s grip but was immediately blindsided by a blow to the side of the head.

He rolled onto his back with a gasp as Ozerov pinned him to the floor. Ozerov’s hand found his wrist and pressed it into the cracked ground as he pulled the front of Steve’s shirt up before slamming Steve’s entire torso back into the concrete – Steve felt the agony shoot up his back as the breath was sent from his body – Ozerov lifted him again – Steve struggled to land a hit with his free arm – what should have been a dizzying blow to the temple landed uselessly without enough force behind it – his back smacked into the floor again – he was being lifted once again –

Ozerov suddenly staggered to one side – blackened blood splattered across Steve’s face – Steve caught a fleeting glimpse of Billy standing above him, a blood spattered hunk of concrete in his hand – but Steve didn’t hesitate – he flung himself around, pushing himself up onto his knees and pressed Ozerov into the ground – he didn’t hesitate – he didn’t blink – he pressed the barrel of the gun against Ozerov’s forehead –

The gunshot rang out across the room – black smoke started spewing from Ozerov’s eyes – it was hard to tell which of these happened first – Steve flung himself out of the way of the smoke, diving across the floor as the smoke billowed into the air –

Above them, the Mind Flayer twisted – the light that El had been trying _so _hard to cultivate seemed to expand – Ozerov's death was the last straw holding back El's power - it was breaking out of the shadow, the beams finally starting to dance across the walls – El let out an enormous cry – blood poured down from her nose, her eyes, her ears as Hopper turned towards her in shock – the light began to spread down the enormous shadowy legs – it was still growing – an enormous, blinding white light that seemed to fill the room – Steve couldn’t see what happened to the shadow that was in Ozerov – it seemed to flee away from the light but Steve couldn’t tell to where as the white light blinded him – he threw up his hands as his eyes slammed closed –

The light began to fade. A thud gave Steve his cue to open his eyes. The Demogorgons fell to the floor around him, their bodies limp as they hit the ground, their minds dying with the Mind Flayer. Jonathan dropped the flamethrower without a care, stretching out his arms from the strain the heavy weapon had put on them, staggering over to Nancy.

The Shadow had gone, obliterated by the white light. Will stared at the spot where its head had been a moment earlier, the hairs on the back of his neck falling down against his skin, no longer screaming out their agony. He looked towards his mom, who gave him an exhausted smile as she started moving towards him, the defunct taser falling from her fingers as they closed the gap and pulled each other into a hug.

“I thought you were gone,” Will breathed.

She didn’t have an answer for that. She just held him wordlessly as the tears that Will had been fighting back for what felt like _hours _since the radio had burst to life with Billy’s voice finally slipped down his face.

_“EL!”_

Mike’s shout broke their hug apart. All eyes shot towards El, whose face was covered in blood. She was still on her feet, but at Mike’s shout, her knees gave out completely and she fell to the floor. He was at her side in moments – he barely registered Hopper’s hands on her, gently cradling her head, feeling for a pulse as her whole body went limp. She looked so pale and lifeless, the bright red streaks contrasting with her pale face as she went completely still – _too still _–

“She’s not breathing!” Mike gasped desperately.

“_Joyce!_” Hopper’s sharp shout didn’t completely hide the tremor in his voice, the one indication of the terror that gripped his heart – _he could not watch another daughter die – not like this – not after doing something so recklessly stupid and so terribly, terribly brave…_

Hopper turned her onto her back. His hands found their way onto her chest as training kicked in – he pressed down on her ribcage – his heart was going at double speed – he was back in that place with Will, pale and lifeless between himself and Joyce – he was back in that hospital room, watching other people do this to his little girl – but he was _here, now, _El’s life was in _his _hands this time –

_Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, THIRTY!_

He didn’t bother asking for Joyce’s help. He tilted back her neck to the desired angle – he breathed into her mouth – he would not allow someone else to do this for him, this was _his _job, _his _responsibility, his _fault…_

Chest compressions. _Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. _Breathe into her mouth. Wait for the chest to rise. Chest compressions. _Thirty. _Breathe into her mouth. Wait for her chest to rise –

She gasped a deep, desperate breath into her lungs. Hopper’s hands shook as he pulled them away from her, relief shooting through his body as her eyes fluttered open slowly. Hopper grabbed her and pulled her against his chest, fighting back the sobs that threatened to overwhelm him as he clutched so desperately at her.

Mike’s pale face broke into a relieved smile – Hopper barely saw anyone beyond him – Mike was looking at El with such desperate love in his eyes – such pained relief and _at last, _Hopper saw what El saw in the kid. Despite his flaws, despite all the things that made him such an intolerable presence in Hopper’s life, Hopper could see an understanding there of what it meant to _love _someone, and to love them _unconditionally. _He eased up his grip on El as El turned towards Mike, a smile on his lips.

“You did it,” Mike gasped, tears in his eyes. “You _did it._”

She smiled at him, and in that moment, he leant towards her and pulled her into a kiss. It felt like the world had finally righted itself after _months _of feeling like it wasn’t quite steady on its axis, as he pulled her against his chest and kissed her like his life depended on it.

Steve watched them break apart as the adrenaline left his body. He tore his eyes away from the blissful, tearful smiles on Mike and El’s faces as he collapsed down against the floor, his eyes closed.

_It was over. _

At last, at long last, it was over. Hopper and Joyce had made it back, Owens had the information to destroy the Kamchatka Operation, El was alive, the Mind Flayer was gone, Ozerov was _dead, _lying dead next to him. Steve cracked his eyes open a fraction to look at the body next to him – to reassure himself that Ozerov truly _was _at last gone from this world –

“Steve?”

The soft voice coming next to him shattered the moment – the slight tremor in Billy’s voice the first indication that something was very, _very _wrong – Billy sounded _scared – _he sounded _terrified – _Steve turned towards him and his heart stopped – the whereabouts of the last fragment of the Mind Flayer from Ozerov revealed in a look as Billy faced him, terror in his eyes as his blood vessels began to turn black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you ask how I could be so cruel, look at the rest of this story and tell me honestly that you're surprised.
> 
> So this chapter was a monster. I had such a great time with it (can you tell?) but oh my god it took a lot of work. I'm physically exhausted from writing it. This was always going to be where this chapter ended, I've mentioned a few times I had some non-negotiable cliffhangers and this was one of them. I know I'm evil.
> 
> Also this chapter was such an exercise in how to write action - writing an entire dogfight in nothing but dialogue was a nightmare and then something ridiculous like 6500 word non-stop action scene where SO MUCH HAPPENED was a challenge in and of itself...


	51. Part 4 Chapter 16: Burn Baby Burn

Steve scrambled to his feet, terror clenching his heart – _no – no – not this – not Billy – not again – not now –_

“Billy,” Steve gasped, grabbing Billy’s outstretched hands in his own and holding him. Billy’s body was hunched over, illuminated only by the light of the Gate still open next to them – he looked up at Steve, tears shining in his eyes as he shook his head – Steve could feel Billy shaking in his hands – Steve’s hands left Billy’s and took his shoulders as he felt Billy’s hands twist into Steve’s jacket, clutching on for dear life as he looked with such _fear _at Steve.

“Billy, please, you have to fight it – _please, _Billy – you have to fight it for me-”

“I – I can’t…”

Billy’s voice was little more than a whimper – Steve felt his heart break at the fear in his voice – for all that Steve was begging for this to just be _over, _he knew that the fear Billy felt must be magnified tenfold – Steve could hear Billy’s voice ringing in his ears, echoes of a long-distant conversation, watching Billy hunched over in a cell, curled up against the floor, back in control of his own actions for the first time in _months_, taken into a situation he _never _should have been a part of to be abandoned – trapped – unable to do _anything _to extricate himself from it after having had no control over ending up there.

_“Do you know what it’s like?_ _Being a fucking passenger in your own body? To watch as it starts trying to hurt your friends, your – your fucking family?”_

Steve would do _anything _to stop Billy having to go through that again.

“Billy – please – the man I love is still in there somewhere – I _know _you’re in there somewhere – _please, _you have to _fight _this thing-”

“I _can’t, _Steve – I _can’t_…”

“You _can, _Billy, I _know _you can, you’re stronger than this, _please, _Billy, you have to do this – _please _do this – for Max – for _me…_”

Billy looked up at Steve, and Steve honestly didn’t know if he’d ever seen Billy look at him with such raw emotion before. He looked _terrified. _Tears hung in bloodshot eyes as lines of black started creeping up the blood vessels in Billy’s neck. He looked in agony at Steve – Steve knew the pain he was feeling – _every cell in his body screaming out in pain, screaming their awareness at him –_

“I can’t, Steve, I can’t – I can’t – I’m not _strong_ like you were – I can’t do this – I can’t do this – help me, Steve – please – _help _me – please, Steve – please – you have to help me…”

Tears poured down Billy’s face as Steve placed a hand on Billy’s cheek – seeing Billy reduced to _this _– he had been Steve’s rock in _all _of this – to see him sobbing, _begging _for help – he hadn’t even begged when the Russians were all but killing him in front of Steve – to see him brought this _low _– broke Steve’s heart.

“It wants to kill you, Steve…” Billy sobbed. “It wants to kill you all – I can’t do it – I can’t stop it – I can’t let it – _please, _Steve…”

_Billy had been strong for Steve so many times. Steve had to be strong for Billy now._

“What can I do, Billy?” Steve implored, surprised by how clear his voice was. “_Please, _Billy, tell me how I can help.”

“I need to-” Billy doubled over in pain, letting out a cry as he clutched his stomach. His legs shook and he fell to his knees in agony. Steve dropped down beside him, fighting back the well of panic that threatened to overwhelm him – _he had to be strong for Billy._

“I need to _burn…_” Billy gasped out, his voice little more than a whisper on the air. “I need to burn like you did…”

Steve felt his stomach drop. A phantom pain that he hadn’t felt for months, a memory of agony tingled in his leg. Steve felt a wave of nausea rising up, the memory of burning flesh tickling his nose – the idea of putting Billy through that made him feel physically sick.

“Billy…”

“_It’s the only way!_” Billy gasped, his voice coming out as a broken sob. “_Please, _Steve, I can’t do it – I can’t do it – not again…”

Steve looked at him as tears started to form in his own eyes. Billy hunched over, falling forward against Steve as a fresh wave of pain tore a scream from his lips. Steve caught him, _held _him against his chest as Billy shook violently in his arms – Steve fought to get his own breathing under control –

“_Please, _Steve, you _have _to – I can’t hold it back for much longer…”

It was this quiet plea, only audible to Steve as Billy choked it out against his neck that finally hardened Steve’s resolve. Billy was right – there _was _no other way. This thing had almost taken Will before, it had tried to destroy all that was left of Will – he didn’t know if the Mind Flayer would risk keeping Billy alive again – Steve knew he couldn’t risk it choosing not to do so.

_If they waited, Billy was as good as dead. They couldn’t afford to wait._

Steve sprinted across the room, ignoring the terrified looks shot at him. Max ran over to Billy, kneeling down beside him as he remained on his knees, hunched over, his hands clenching into his sides as he held his arms folded across his body, a scream of agony only held back by gritted teeth.

_“Billy?”_

_“Steve?”_

_“What’s going on?”_

_“Billy, are you okay?”_

_“What’s happening?”_

_“Oh shit – is he Flayed?”_

_“Shit – what do we do?”_

_“Steve – what are you doing?”_

The questions battered at the edge of Steve’s awareness as he grabbed the flamethrower off the floor from beside Jonathan. He hauled the strap over his shoulder and checked the pilot light – _it had gone out –_

“Steve, what – what are you doing?”

Max’s repeated question finally broke through Steve’s focus as he scoured the ground for the lighter –

“Steve – _no – _no – Steve, you _can’t-_”

Max’s voice rose in protest as she suddenly realised what exactly Steve was doing – Steve did his level best to ignore her as he continued to search for the lighter that he’d tossed to Jonathan –

“Steve – what are you…” Lucas began.

“Steve – _please _tell me you’re not-” Max interrupted.

“I have to burn it out of him,” Steve explained, trying his best to keep the shake out of his voice, a determined forcefulness biting at the edge of his words.

“Steve – you _can’t!_” Max’s panicked voice rose to a scream. “You can’t – you’ll kill him-”

“If I don’t, he’s as good as dead,” Steve said grimly. “Jonathan, where’s that lighter?”

He turned to look at Jonathan, his barely restrained panic threatening to break out of the last thread holding it back. Jonathan, however, stared at him, horror etched in every single line of his face.

“Jonathan_, I need the fucking lighter!_”

The desperation in Steve’s voice finally had Jonathan reaching into his pocket and pulling out the small lighter. He held it loosely at his side, slowly reaching it out towards Steve. Steve snatched it from his trembling grip, flicking it against the barrel of the flamethrower as he twisted the dial on the side.

“Steve – _NO!_”

Max screamed as she ran towards him, leaving Billy hunched over himself in the corner. Lucas ran forwards, catching her in his arms and pulling her close against his body as she fought tooth and nail to get to Steve – to _stop _him – to do _something_ – Dustin’s words, seemingly a lifetime ago, rang in Lucas’ ears.

_If it’s a choice between Billy or the world, we might have to make the tough call._

“Steve, you _can’t!_” Max sobbed. “You can’t – you’ll _kill him!_”

Steve did his best to block out the very reasonable protest that threatened to undo the last shred of his resolve. He was hyperaware of how this could end – he remembered lying on the memorial outside the twisted nightmare of Starcourt like a sacrificial altar, praying for it all to just _stop, _hoping for some end to come until it all became too much – but there was no other choice. He would not let Billy go through the pain he’d endured once before, he _could _not let Billy go through that again.

“Steve, is there no other way?”

The quiet plea didn’t come from Max but rather from Joyce. Steve found his head snapping towards her, his lips parted slightly as he didn’t nod, he didn’t shake his head, he didn’t say a word, he just _looked _at her, unable to offer an answer. Her eyes fell closed and Steve felt a wave of nausea at the sickening, quiet understanding on her face that fell into sadness. _She knew, of course she knew, she understood, she had needed to do something similar to Will, she understood that it was necessary._

“Are you _sure _about this?”

Steve ignored Hopper’s question as he crossed the room. _No, he wasn’t sure. He wanted there to be another way, he wanted to _find _another way, but that meant risking Billy’s life and Steve couldn’t do that –_

“How do you know it’ll work?” Dustin’s voice cracked, as though he hardly dared to ask.

Steve faced Billy, his eyes closing for a moment too long to pass as a blink.

“Because it worked on me,” Steve said.

Any further protests were cut off as the truth in Steve’s words began to sink in, Billy’s vague explanation of how Steve had _“burnt that thing out of him” _taking on a whole new, far more vivid meaning. Steve faced Billy, flamethrower in hand, closing his eyes as he faced Billy, hunched over himself on the floor on his knees, still clutching his stomach, tears pouring down his face.

“El, as soon as you can, I need you to close the Gate,” Steve tore his eyes away from the sight before him to look at her, huddled between Hopper and Mike.

“Kid,” Hopper growled –

“If this thing goes back through, then everything we did today will be for nothing,” Steve said determinedly. “We need that Gate closed. We need to _kill _it.”

The look of anger on Hopper’s face was matched only by the look of defiance on El’s. She turned to him, an exhausted determination in her eyes. She nodded at Steve grimly.

“Once it’s out,” was all she said.

Steve’s brow furrowed as he looked at the Gate as she hauled herself to her feet with a physical effort, leaning heavily on Mike as Hopper clung on to her to steady her.

“El, you don’t-”

“I have to do this,” she said over the tiny protest Mike offered. “It has to be stopped.”

She looked back at Steve.

“Once Billy’s safe,” she elaborated, “I’ll close it.”

Steve felt a well of gratitude bubble up inside his chest, swallowing any protests he may have had. He didn’t know if closing the Gate while the Mind Flayer was still inside Billy would be enough to kill it, but if it _was, _then it would take Billy with him.

“We can’t lose Billy,” El said determinedly, looking at Max.

Steve’s eyes fell shut as he understood. _This _had been what Max had risked everything for_ – _she and El had risked their lives to stop Billy from dying in the first place. She had broken friendships and given up her relationship to try and save him from the Mind Flayer. She and El had torn open holes in the fabric of reality to try and find a way to bring him back from the Upside Down. She had both given up _so much _for Billy – they couldn’t lose him now.

Steve felt the weight of his actions as he turned back to Billy.

Billy cut a truly pathetic figure, curled up over his knees, tears pouring down his red face as black lines crept up his neck. Steve closed his eyes as he took a deep breath.

_Keep your eyes open._

The voice in his head, a memory of the worst day of Steve’s life was oddly calming. The quiet instructions had guided Steve then, in the final brush of the masterstroke of the Mind Flayer’s grand plan. The irony that Steve now drew strength from it as he faced the hardest decision of his life, to guide him towards the actions to undo that grand plan was not lost on him.

“Please, Steve…” Billy gasped, his voice almost inaudible.

_The boy flashed across Steve’s mind, kneeling on the floor, begging with words Steve hadn’t known exact meanings for – _Billy was kneeling, pleading for his life – _If Steve’s resolve broke in that moment, Billy was dead – _Steve knew he couldn’t fail Billy now –

He had been strong for Billy then. He would be strong for Billy now.

Steve aimed the flamethrower at the ground a few feet in front of Billy and pulled the trigger. The jet of flame shot out with a roar as Steve started moving it gradually closer and closer to Billy – Billy’s choked off screams grew louder, higher, more intense as the fire got closer – his hands flew from his stomach as they made an aborted move towards the ground – Billy pulled his hands back with a jerk, burying them in his hair and pulling at the roots as he flung his head back, a roaring scream of agony tearing itself from his lips –

Billy fell back as Steve forced himself to move the jet of flame closer to Billy. Every scream was tearing at his resolve – but there was no way to make this quick – it wasn’t in Steve’s power to make this quick – not unless he wanted to kill Billy and Steve would do whatever it took to make sure that didn’t happen – he understood what Billy had felt all those months ago when he had made the decision to try and Flay Steve – he _felt _it, every ounce of regret and sadness and helplessness that there was _no other way…_

Billy’s leg kicked out with a jerk – whether it was a spasm of Billy’s pain as he rolled around on the floor or a deliberate, desperate move on Billy’s part to try and offer some part of himself that Steve could burn to drive the Mind Flayer from him, Steve didn’t know, but he took the opportunity, directing the jet of flame onto Billy’s leg –

The smell of burning filled the air as Billy’s pant leg began to char and burn away – a sickening, saccharine smell that was terrifyingly familiar to Steve began to emanate as Billy’s screams intensified. Steve gritted his teeth, blinking back tears – he didn’t know whether they were from the heat or the smell or the sheer horror of what he was doing – Billy’s screams filled the air, screams of agony – Steve again felt a tingling sensation in his own leg – _he remembered the agony as blisters bubbled up and burst on his leg – _he had made a point not to look at the scarring that still remained –

_“Stop it! Steve, for God’s sake, stop it!”_

Max’s screams were tearing at the edge of his awareness. He couldn’t look at her – he couldn’t bear to see her – he could imagine her face, blotchy and red from crying – Lucas probably holding her back as she was fighting his hold to stop Steve – to stop him from inflicting the horror that needed to be inflicted on Billy – if he looked at her, his resolve would break, he _knew _that – he knew that if he looked away from Billy, he wouldn’t be able to look back at him – _there was no other way, there was no other way –_

Billy’s scream cracked into a desperate whimper as his whole body bucked away from the floor. All that was left was a desperate, inhuman whine as Billy’s body physically shook with sobs – Steve’s hands were shaking – he gripped the flamethrower tighter – the jet of flame gave an alarming, uncontrolled jolt as Steve’s fingers tightened –

“Steve…”

The desperate sob was barely audible over the roar of the flamethrower, but Billy’s voice cut through Steve’s awareness like a knife.

“Steve, _please, _I can’t…”

The words were slurring together – Steve didn’t know what Billy was begging for – what he couldn’t do – _take any more pain? Hold back the Mind Flayer? _Steve’s fingers tightened on the trigger –

“_STEVE – STOP – PLEASE – I CAN’T!_”

The agonised scream broke the dam behind Steve’s eyes as a sob threatened to overtake him – he _knew _the pain Billy was feeling – he _knew _what he was doing – he knew the ever-present feeling of the end that was pressing down on Billy –

_Just a little longer… Please, Billy, just a little longer –_

“_STEVE – PLEASE – IT’S TOO MUCH!_”

Steve pressed his eyes closed as he forced himself to take a deep breath.

“_STEVE, I CAN’T – I CAN’T – PLEASE, JUST STOP!_”

“Steve, _stop!_”

The new shout – not Billy, not Max – finally shocked his attention away. His finger fell from the trigger as he staggered back at Nancy’s protest, the flamethrower falling to the floor as the strap fell from his shoulder. He looked around at her, stunned, an incessant ringing in his ears as all that was left were the desperate, agonised, exhausted gasping sobs of Billy on the ground.

Max was all but hanging from Lucas’ arm around her waist, folded almost in half as she stared at Billy. Her own sobs finally came into focus – his brain finally processed that she’d been screaming all this time – the tiny repeated flicker of background noise that hadn’t quite come into focus over Billy’s screams. The horror on her face was all but matched by the horror on every other face in the room – Jonathan was holding Will up, turned away from the sight before him as Will was shaking, his knees seemingly completely incapable of holding himself up. Joyce had the same grim expression on her face, her lips pursed together as her eyes clamped shut, trying to fight back her own tears. Dustin, Lucas and Mike had identical expressions of wide-eyed horror on their faces while El looked quietly heartbroken. Robin’s hands clamped over her ears as she stared at Steve while Nancy had tears streaming down her face. Her gun was lying a few feet away from her, thrown out of arms’ reach as she looked at Steve with appalled, heartbroken horror.

Steve stumbled back as Max finally broke free of Lucas’ hold and ran towards Billy. She skidded to a halt by his side, dropping to her knees beside him as Billy lay writhing in agony.

_“Billy? Billy, are you okay?”_

“I’m sorry,” Steve gasped out, like it would ever be enough. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

_“Billy, it’s going to be okay, I promise you-”_

Steve staggered away from Billy, unable to tear his eyes away from him, lying on the floor, whimpering in agony while Max whispered whatever words of comfort she could find.

_“Billy, just hold on – _how could you _do _that?”

Max turned briefly towards Steve as she screamed the accusation, tears swallowing her words and melting them together. Steve barely had a chance to look at her before she turned back towards Billy, ignoring Steve’s presence as much as he had shut her out moments earlier.

“I’m sorry,” Steve continued to gasp as his hands slipped from the flamethrower. His hands were shaking so much, all control lost as he clamped a hand over his mouth, Billy’s incoherent, choked off whimpers of agony all that was left to break the silence that Max was pleading into.

_“Billy, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay, it’ll be alright, you’re going to be fine…”_

But _how _could Billy be fine? Steve had failed – his resolve had broken – he hadn’t been _strong _enough – he’d just inflicted agony that Steve could only understand from experience, and for _what? _He’d stopped – it had been too much for Billy – too much and not enough – he had _failed _– he couldn’t do it again – he didn’t have the heart – the strength – the resolve to try again – Billy couldn’t take it…

Steve’s ears were ringing as he stared at Billy – he couldn’t look at anyone else anymore – couldn’t see that _horror _in their eyes – he knew they didn’t understand – they _couldn’t _understand – all he could hear over the ringing in his ears were Max’s desperate pleas for Billy to hold on, her empty reassurances that it would all be okay –

He realised a split second too late that Billy had stopped whimpering.

His eyes flashed towards Billy – Billy curled towards Max on his side –

“_MAX, GET BACK!_”

Her head snapped up at his shout – Steve jumped over the flamethrower towards them –

Billy twisted himself up, the blood vessels in his eyes running black, his pupils blown wide open. Billy grabbed Max by the arm and twisted it behind her. He brought up his other hand, grabbing her hair and smacking her head down against the floor. She let out a cry on the impact – Steve wasn’t the only person running towards her – the others were shouting –

Billy tossed her aside as he stood up, sending her flying across the floor to slam into the far wall. Lucas veered towards her as Billy turned to face Steve just as Steve got within arm’s reach of him. A hand caught Steve’s neck in a rigid, unyielding grip. Steve gasped as Billy hauled him off the floor one-handed, the tips of Steve’s toes trying to find any support from the floor as Billy hauled him backwards towards the precipice where the floor cracked in front of the Gate. Steve’s hands scratched at the sides of Billy’s arm uselessly – he tried to smack down on the crook of Billy’s elbow, but the joint was locked in place – Steve gasped for air – _he couldn’t breathe – HE COULDN’T BREATHE –_

A gunshot resounded throughout the room as Billy dropped Steve. Steve crumpled on the floor, staggering to his feet as he saw Hopper aiming a gun at Billy – Max was still on the floor by the wall, Lucas struggling to get her up – Nancy, Jonathan, Joyce and Will were close to them – Dustin was still hovering slightly, torn between helping Max and doing what he could to help Steve – Steve shook his head at Dustin as he got to his feet.

“Get out of here – _Go!_” Steve yelled. “Get the others out! El-”

He hesitated – he could still see the very vivid image of her lying on the floor, Hopper bent over her, doing everything he could to bring her back from the brink –

Billy’s head snapped towards Steve at the sound of the shout before turning towards El. A dark look came into Billy’s eyes as he took a step towards her –

Steve grabbed Billy’s arm and twisted it over his shoulder as Billy swung his arm around towards Steve. Steve ducked down and towards Billy as the momentum of the attempted swing carried him over Steve’s shoulder. Steve threw him to the ground as he placed himself between Billy and El, but Billy recovered from the throw in seconds, his feet hitting the ground first and giving him a chance to right his balance.

“We need that Gate closed!” Steve yelled, any hesitation forgotten. “The rest of you, _go – _just go!”

There was a last look from Nancy, something unreadable and undecipherable behind a wave of devastation in her eyes as she looked at him before rushing forward to grab Mike. Jonathan seemed to follow suit, offering Steve something akin to understanding – if not of his actions then at least of his motives – before he joined Nancy with Will in tow. Mike was screaming protests that sounded like bloody murder as Nancy tore him away from El’s side, while Lucas started easing Max to her feet, trying to encourage her to go – to find a way out – to do _something _other than watching Billy being burnt alive – _Lucas was right, she didn’t need to see this – _Dustin made no move to go – Robin hovered behind, neither willing to leave Steve – _not again –_

Steve tore his attention back to the task at hand – his eyes found the flamethrower, discarded on the floor in a snap judgement not to risk Max. _If Steve could just get it –_

Billy grabbed Steve’s arm and threw him to one side. Steve caught the arm as he staggered towards the precipice in front of the Gate – _he could see the floor below, a pile of broken concrete that had fallen from the wall that had become the Gate and landed in the basement _– Steve struggled to find his footing as he grabbed onto Billy’s wrist, pulling it away from his chest – Billy lifted his leg and landed a kick on the front of Steve’s knee – Steve felt his leg give out – _but it didn’t feel broken – it was just incredibly painful –_

Billy threw Steve’s wrist backwards, sending him sprawling onto his back – his head snapped back onto open air as Steve suddenly became aware that the ground underneath his back stopped halfway up his shoulder blades – he was all but dangling over the edge of the precipice –

The light from the Gate behind him started to di, as Billy grabbed him and pinned him to the floor with one hand, his other finding its way towards Steve’s neck – Steve caught the wrist, trying to hold it back – Billy was stronger – the _Mind Flayer _was stronger – Steve felt the fingers inching closer and closer to his neck –

Steve snapped his head up, catching the square of Billy’s forehead with his own. It was a stupid move, poorly executed – _he was just as dizzy as Billy – _only Steve didn’t have the Mind Flayer’s ability to recover as quickly –

Steve could dimly make out the silhouette of Hopper over Billy’s shoulder, standing next to El, gun raised – El’s hand was raised towards the Gate – _the flickering, fading light suddenly made sense – _Hopper was aiming the gun squarely at Billy’s back – _he was going for a kill shot – _

Steve couldn’t let Billy die.

Steve swung his legs around, throwing his whole body weight up and catching Billy in the side. The unexpected move startled Billy, knocking him off balance as Steve pushed Billy around towards the precipice. Billy didn’t let up his grip on Steve, pulling Steve with him by the chest as he tumbled towards the edge – Billy was less successful than Steve at catching the crack as he fell over, a hand still on Steve – Steve felt his grip on the rock break as it took on the weight of Billy – _he was falling – he was falling –_

He landed with a thud, the worst of his fall broken by Billy underneath him. He coughed, his body protesting the slightest movement as he took in his surroundings – fortunately, the fall seemed to have done as much to Billy as to Steve – Steve crawled off Billy, gasping for air as Billy seemed as slow to recover.

The Gate started to slowly knit together as El staggered forwards towards the precipice. Max and Dustin followed close behind, hesitant to get too close in case Billy started shooting again, but El needed to _see. _She needed to know when that _thing _was out of Billy – she wouldn’t risk his life by closing the Gate completely before it was out of him. Max and Dustin rushed to the edge behind her, terrified of what they were going to find.

The room below was dark, the only light coming from the Gate above. The ground was covered in chunks of concrete, the ruins of the room above, the doorway to the rest of the Lab barely reachable over the rubble. Steve’s ears slowly started to recover from the fall, his hearing easing back into clarity –

_“…eve!”_

_“Billy!”_

_“Steve, are you okay?”_

Steve’s head snapped up towards the crack – he could dimly make out two heads peering over the edge – Dustin’s curls stood out – _he hadn’t gone with the others – he needed to get out – the fall had been less than ten feet, he would be okay_ –

Billy hauled himself to his feet, his attention caught by something to his left – Steve followed his gaze –

_Billy’s gun._

Ozerov had thrown it over the side – Steve’s own gun was by Ozerov’s body on the floor above, along with the flamethrower – _if Billy got the gun –_

He sprinted forwards just as Billy noticed him. Billy lunged forwards as they both scrambled over the debris towards it – Billy got to it first – Steve grabbed at his wrist – he pushed Billy’s arm out of the way – Steve’s fingers grazed the metal –

The gun was yanked away from him as Steve dived sideways. A gunshot blasted over his head – Steve leapt out of the way as Billy pushed past him – another gunshot echoed at the ceiling – Billy was aiming upwards, past Steve – the gun was trained on the crack in the ceiling – _the kids on the floor above –_

Dustin hauled Max back from the edge as the bullet shot through the air.

“We have to help!” he yelled, pulling Max further back as Billy aimed another shot.

“_How?_” she asked incredulously.

Dustin’s eyes flitted around the room, looking for something _– anything _– he could use to stop Billy –

His eyes landed on the flamethrower, pilot light still quietly blazing away. He started towards it, ignoring Max’s protests as she saw where he was going –

“Dustin – _Dustin, what are you-_”

“You heard Steve, it _worked!_” he pointed out as he tried to lift it –

He was not even remotely prepared for how heavy it was.

Hopper rushed towards El at the sound of the gunshots, aiming a shot down below at Billy – _he could see Steve struggling to find his feet – _Hopper was forced back as Billy aimed a gun at him, firing off three rounds at where he stood.

“By the time we get down there, it’ll be too late!” Max pointed out as Dustin continued to struggle with the flamethrower.

Dustin had to admit that using the flamethrower was looking less and less viable as he continued to struggle to lift it. Even if he could lift it – even if he could carry it downstairs – he would need to _find _a flight of stairs that was still usable – there was no guarantee he could get down there in time to save Steve –

_But _he _didn’t need to get down there._

Billy aimed another shot at El, standing on the precipice with her arm outstretched over the void – Steve didn’t think – he lunged at Billy, barrelling into his back and sending him staggering forwards. Billy doubled over with the force of the blow – Steve bent over Billy’s back and wrapped his hand around Billy’s arm, trying to pull it back – trying to bring the gun within reach –

Billy straightened up, twisting his shoulder as he did so, sending Steve sliding off him as Billy ducked out from under him. Billy grabbed Steve’s wrist in his free hand and yanked it off his arm, twisting it back and around – Steve could feel the bones in his wrist grinding together – _they were going to break –_

Steve balled his free hand into a fist and threw his full force behind a punch that landed straight against Billy’s nose. It _should _have sent Billy staggering back – it _would _have done under normal circumstances – but Billy kept his footing, his head absorbing most of the impact. Billy didn’t let go of Steve, but he stopped twisting his wrist, a look of mildly indignant surprise gracing his features as his nose burst open.

Steve followed it up with a second punch, trying to land it in the same spot, but Billy dropped the gun and caught Steve’s fist, gripping it tight, clenching his hand shut around Steve’s wrist, bending Steve’s fingers as he squeezed tighter and tighter…

Steve swung his knee up between Billy’s legs. Billy twisted at the last moment, letting go of Steve’s wrist while his hand still closed around Steve’s fist, keeping it firmly trapped. Steve pushed against Billy, trying to keep himself between Billy and the Gate. _If he could keep Billy busy while El closed the Gate, there was a chance that they could end this – they could end everything –_

Billy’s eyes darkened at the realisation of what Steve was doing. He gave Steve a glare, his eyes widening as he rounded on Steve. The Gate was closing behind Steve – Steve could see the light darkening – he could barely spare a passing thought for El – _she was probably exhausted –_

Steve stumbled as Billy lunged at him, grabbing his chest and finally exerting his full strength to throw Steve to the floor. Steve felt himself pinned down by a single arm – his hands closed around Billy’s wrist as it pressed down into his chest – Billy’s other hand was reaching for something out of Steve’s field of vision –

Steve’s eyes widened as he saw Billy bring the gun into his field of vision. He reached out his right hand, desperate to push it away, but Billy lifted the hand on Steve’s chest, catching Steve’s wrist in a vice-like grip before bringing it down onto Steve’s left hand, trapping them together. Billy slowly brought the gun up to Steve – Steve saw Billy’s face contort in pain as he did so – it was as though every muscle movement caused Billy physical agony. Billy pressed the barrel of the gun against Steve’s head, the cold metal firmly pinning Steve to the ground, but he didn’t pull the trigger. Steve watched his index finger dance next to the trigger, his hands shaking as the gun only stayed in place from the contact with Steve’s skin – Steve felt his eyes close and his heart break as he realised.

_Billy was still in there._

Steve opened his eyes, feeling the tears sting as he offered a sad smile to Billy. He would not let Billy blame himself for this. Whatever happened, Billy had to know that Steve knew it wasn’t his fault. If Billy was forced to watch his own hands used to kill Steve, then Steve wasn’t going to let this destroy him.

“It’s okay,” Steve breathed, his voice shaky. “It’s okay, Billy. It’s not your fault – it’s not you.”

Steve could feel the physical change. Billy’s hand froze – his whole body stopped shaking. He stilled completely – Steve couldn’t even feel Billy’s breath on his face. The black lines in his eyes seemed to retreat slightly.

“I love you, Billy,” Steve breathed, his whole body shaking as he exhaled, making his breath sound like a laugh as he smiled up at Billy. “With all my heart, I love you.”

The black lines in Billy’s eyes seemed to fade. His skin grew less grey, more natural as colour returned to his face – the blue eyes looking down at him turned from anger to sadness to melancholy to something more as the gun stayed frozen on Steve’s head.

_A thousand words danced on the tip of Billy’s tongue as he stared at Steve in that storm cellar, taking an absolution offered as Billy couldn’t quite bring himself the words he longed to utter, he was a coward but he’d never known it before, he couldn’t be sure… Steve was bearing his heart on his sleeve in the light of the first sunrise they’d seen in eight months, Billy heard the words so open and honest from Steve, but Billy had never known what it was, he had never felt it before, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it and call it by its name, it was strong, yes, but he didn’t dare call it that because it only ever ended in pain, it only ended in betrayal, it always had and it always would, and to admit it to Steve, he needed to admit it to himself even though until that moment he hadn’t known its name… Billy began to realise it was different before then, when he had lain twisted up in Steve’s body after the first time Steve had given himself completely to Billy, their clothes discarded around them on the floor of their cell in a place they never should have been, after finding out what Steve had done to keep him alive, to bring them back together, realising that Steve would truly do anything for him, no matter what, and Billy had realised that he would accept Steve anyway, no matter what happened, as Steve traced the pale lines on his skin with his finger with tenderness and a void of judgement… The same void of judgement showing itself the first time Billy felt fully in control of himself in he didn’t know how long, explaining the horrors that he’d done, the ways that he’d manipulated Steve, hurt Steve, tried to kill Steve and killed so many others only for Steve to accept him like Billy would one day accept Steve, with no caveats, nothing but forgiveness and an open heart… Carrying Steve onto the memorial and laying him out like a sacrificial lamb because the traitorous voice in his head promised that Steve could be saved, that this was the only way he could save Steve, knowing that it would hurt Steve but doing it anyway because the voice in his head told him that Steve didn’t want to die, that he couldn’t lose him, he couldn’t watch Steve die, he couldn’t let Steve die because there was a way to save him, and knowing that he would do anything to save Steve, he would do anything for Steve, because even then he’d felt it, even then, even all those months ago, when he couldn’t recognise it, couldn’t tell it from the obsession of the voice in his head, couldn’t separate them but in hindsight, he knew what it was, he knew its name, he knew he’d felt it, he’d felt it all this time and he hadn’t dared to call it by its name…_

Billy’s grip around the gun slackened as he pushed himself back away from Steve, every muscle in his body screaming out in protest, holding back the agony that was screaming in his veins as he looked back down at Steve with tears in his eyes.

“I love you too,” Billy breathed, his hands falling from the gun.

Steve recognised the opportunity – the last chance – the gift from Billy – for what it was.

Steve’s hands flew up and grabbed the gun. The black lines in Billy’s eyes returned with a vengeance – the hands slammed down on Steve’s chest as Steve raised the gun –

The bullet slammed into Billy’s side, nicking the side of his waist. Billy stumbled backwards with the force of the bullet that ripped through his skin, leaving a trail of black in its wake. Steve pushed himself to his feet, gun trained on Billy –

_“Steve!”_

His head snapped up just in time to see Dustin drop the flamethrower off the precipice. He dived to one side as it crashed down to the floor with a sickening thud. Billy’s eyes landed on it, his eyes bulging as Steve grabbed it, hauling it up –

Billy charged –

A jet of flame caught Billy straight in the chest. Billy’s body twisted in the air, held immobile by the agony. Billy was screaming – Steve could see it – but he could hear nothing beyond the roar of the fire – the pounding in his ears – the echo of those four words said by _Billy, _because through everything, Billy loved him, _he loved him, and nothing, not even the Mind Flayer could take that away._

El heard Billy’s agony, a final burst of anger as she raised her other hand against the Gate. _The Mind Flayer had caused so much pain to her friends, even now, even in its final moments, she could hear Billy’s screams down below, the pain coming from Billy as much as the Mind Flayer, she could hear Max’s desperate sobs as she was held back by Lucas, she could see Dustin staring down below as the light from the fire grew brighter as the Gate drew closer and closer to a close, the red light from the line in the wall getting dimmer, smaller, drawing towards the line it had cracked in the wall, she could glimpse down below, when she dared to chance a glance, the orange light from the flames that wrapped themselves around Billy flickering off Steve’s face, the silver tear tracks over Steve’s cheeks burning molten gold as they caught the light, making them shine even from a distance…_

The Mind Flayer had hurt them enough.

The Gate drew close – there was little more than a fault line left –

Billy gave an enormous scream as a black shadow flew from his eyes and mouth. It blasted through the air – Steve dropped the flamethrower and flung himself to one side as the shadow shot past him – towards the Gate – _the red light of the fault line was fading from the ground up – the shadow was chasing the last of the light –_

Suddenly, the shadow stopped, twisting in a frozen spot in mid-air less than a foot from the Gate, as though caught, trapped in a bubble. El drew her hand back as the shadow curled into a ball, _black smoke twisting in the air – _El let out a scream as a small white light – an ember of what had come before ignited in the heart of the smoke. The light grew – the shadow seemed to expand outwards, tiny particles of precipitate fleeing from the light as best they could in the confines of the trap – as the red light from the wall faded, the white light seemed to grow, getting brighter – _brighter – brighter –_

As the light from the Gate finally went out, leaving only a wall that seemed to be crumbling from the inside out in its wake, the white light finally burst from the confines of the trap as El gave a final scream. She jerked her arms back, releasing the tension, the raw _power _that had flown from her with the blood running down from her nose. She staggered backwards, Hopper barely able to do anything more than catch her and lower her to the ground, pulling her into his arms as he pressed his face into her hair as they sat, curled together on the floor.

Steve felt his legs shake as the light went out. He hardly dared to turn towards the dim silhouette lying on the floor, completely motionless, not a sound to be heard from him – not even a whimper – not even a guttural breath – but Steve had to know – _he had to see what he’d done – he had to fix it – he had to fix Billy…_

His legs carried him the few steps he needed in an unsteady gait before he fell to his knees by Billy’s side. Steve felt the air leave his body as he looked down at Billy’s still form.

What was left of his clothes had huge holes charred into them, revealing blistered skin that had peeled back to expose raw flesh. His chest was red raw, what little skin that remained forming a strange, mottled pattern that Steve had only recognised from his own leg all those months ago. Steve’s hand hovered above it, but he didn’t dare touch it. Instead, Steve looked up at Billy’s face, pale even in the dim light, his eyes closed, a fine layer of soot painting black patches on what remained of his skin.

Steve’s fingers were shaking as they brushed Billy’s face. Steve was barely able to draw in a breath as he looked down at Billy, feeling the tears on his face for the first time.

“Billy…” Steve breathed, little more than a whisper, shaking with barely repressed sobs. “Billy, it’s over. It’s gone.”

The silence pressed against Steve’s ears as he gently cradled Billy’s face in his hands.

“We can go home now, Billy,” Steve gasped out. “Your dad’s not there, we can go home. Please… _Please_ come home with me. _Please _don’t leave me here alone. You told me you’d never leave me. I can’t do this on my own, Billy, _please _don’t leave me. Not _now._”

Billy didn’t move – he didn’t give any sign he’d heard. Steve took one of Billy’s hands in his own, bringing it up to cradle his face before checking his wrist for a pulse – Billy’s hand was cold in his own – _too cold _– he felt nothing under the fingers he pressed into Billy’s wrist – _he must not have done it right…_

“We can go to California,” Steve choked out behind a sob, his voice a breath on the air as he fought through a sob that threatened to overwhelm him. “We were going to go to California, remember that? You were going to show me San Francisco. You were going to take me surfing. I’ll be shit at it, but you need to take me. You need to show me the right beach. We can go, we can be _happy _there, we can enjoy the sun, just _please, _Billy… _please _wake up…”

His whole body shook with barely repressed sobs as Billy remained motionless beneath his hands. Steve’s hand ghosted above Billy’s chest, and for the first time, he realised just how _still _it was. The truth was staring him in the face, from Billy’s still chest to the lack of a pulse under his fingers to the fact that Billy wouldn’t wake, even though it was _Steve _asking, but Steve rejected it – he rejected the truth because Billy had promised _over and over again _that he would never leave Steve. He couldn’t leave Steve. _Not now. Not when they had a chance for a normal life again._

But the truth would not be denied. Billy remained still as Steve felt the last vestiges of strength give out and collapsed onto Billy’s chest, clutching at all that was left of Billy as despair swallowed him whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> ............. please don't kill me *hides*


	52. Part 4 Chapter 17: The Babysitter’s Babysitter

_“Billy? BILLY!”_

Steve barely heard Max’s scream as she burst into the room, Lucas hot on her tail. He didn’t register her presence as he stared down at Billy’s face. He felt like he was underwater, staring down at the still, pale face beneath his hands. He barely noticed her crash to the floor beside him, taking Billy’s face in her hands and screaming words Steve couldn’t hear at Billy, _begging _him to wake up, to not be gone. He didn’t hear her devolve into sobs. He didn’t notice anything beyond Billy’s still body as he knelt on the hard ground, his whole body hunched over him.

_He was gone. Steve had killed him. Steve had heard the last words ever to come from his lips, the words he’d longed for Billy to say for days now – had it really only been days? He had heard Billy confess his love for Steve in the final moment that Billy had had any real control over his body, the moment where Billy chose to save Steve, to drop the gun, and Steve had taken it and shot Billy in the side before burning the life from him. The future that had been spread out before them was gone up in smoke, the life that Billy had fought so hard to get back, the life he’d wanted to share with Steve now that his dad was out of the picture had been burnt to a crisp – Steve had quite literally set it on fire and destroyed it, leaving Steve alone, alone to deal with the horrors of what had happened, the horrors of what he’d done, the horrors of what he’d done to _Billy…

He couldn’t do it. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to carry on, how he was supposed to pick himself up, to pick up the threads of his old life like he wasn’t so fundamentally changed, like he didn’t have a hole in his chest, like he could still feel his heart in his chest, like he could feel _anything…_

_“Steve…”_

A soft voice, so gentle, battered at the edge of his awareness. As though in a dream, he felt hands on his shoulders – he could barely feel them, but they seemed to be moving – whoever was touching him was shaking so much – _or was that him?_

“Steve.”

The voice had a fraction more success at breaking through his awareness the second time. He still couldn’t peel his eyes away from Billy, but he heard the voice – it was more than simply realising his name had been said. The hands on his shoulders became firm – they were _leaning _on him – they pushed him back away from Billy – he fell backwards slightly so he was sitting on the ground as opposed to kneeling – whoever was leaning on him eased him back – slender arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders – his hands, devoid of Billy to touch – to hold – to _not let go, to never let go because he couldn’t let Billy go, Billy promised he would never leave him and he would hold Billy to that promise, he wouldn’t let him leave, he wouldn’t let him go, he had to hold him to that promise, he had to hold him –_

His hands clenched at the back of the person who was now holding him up – the only thing stopping him from falling backwards as he leant on the shoulder, his chin resting there while his eyes stayed wide open, staring at Billy because he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from him – the person holding him back was pushing him away – _or was he pushing towards Billy?_

Words floated above him, filtering with no small degree of latency through his mind into his awareness.

_“Paramedics are here… Owens had them on standby… they need to look at him… you need to let them look at him…”_

Strangers flooded the room – figures worked their way through the ruin of a room towards him – hands found their way onto Billy’s chest – _they were pressing down on it just like Hopper had tried to do with El…_

Max was being held back by Lucas, wrapped in his arms while she sobbed, curled in on herself as the hands brought something into view. Steve didn’t look at it, he couldn’t take his eyes off Billy – whoever was holding him back was pushing him backwards – _or he was pushing against them, he didn’t know _– the hands on Billy cut away what was left of his shirt as they placed rubber pads with no gentleness onto Billy’s chest…

_“Two hundred joules.”_

Steve watched as something jolted through Billy’s body.

_“They’re trying to revive him, Steve…”_ the hands holding him back were saying –

_There was no point – Billy was gone – he’d left – Steve had killed him – why were they prolonging it? Why were they going to all this trouble? Why were they putting his body through all this? There was no sense in it – Billy wasn’t going to come back – Steve had seen to that – Steve had done this to Billy and now Billy was gone, why were they trying to bring him back?_

_“Three hundred and sixty joules.”_

Steve saw Max twist her head in his periphery, turning into Lucas’ chest and burying her face in his shoulder. A part of Steve wanted to do the same – he couldn’t watch this – but he _had _to watch this – this was _Billy _– he was gone, but Steve couldn’t leave him – Steve had told him that he would never leave him – even if Billy was gone, Steve would stay because he’d _promised _– he owed it to Billy – Billy had stayed with him while Steve had agonised over whether to go back home – he could have gone to start his life again but he _didn’t _– because of Steve, Billy had stayed around to get possessed again – to get _burnt _by Steve – to get _killed _by Steve – Steve couldn’t leave him now – _not when it was his fault –_

Billy’s body jolted as the hands pressed down on his chest again and again, breathing into his mouth, _like there was any point – like Steve hadn’t killed him – like Billy could be saved – Billy was gone – he was gone and he wasn’t coming back – Steve had killed him – Steve had let him die and there was nothing he could do about it –_

Billy remained completely still as the hands continued pressing down into his chest with such force Steve could see individual parts of his abdomen kicking up. Hands flitted around Billy, pressing down on his wrist like Steve’s had done moments earlier, but they would find nothing – because there was nothing to find –

_“I’VE GOT A PULSE!”_

The shout broke through Steve’s awareness, but it took his brain a moment to catch up. Hands descended on Billy, pressing down on his chest with renewed fervour – _they were pressing too hard – they were going to break his ribs –_

_“Keep doing chest compressions-”_

_“We need that gurney-”_

_“He’s gone into cardiac arrest – keep the defibrillator on standby-”_

_“Get oxygen ready as a precaution – we shouldn’t need it but keep it ready-”_

Steve couldn’t keep up with all the instructions – he was trying to get to Billy’s side – Max was already there – but the hands on Billy were pushing her back – Lucas was holding onto her, pulling her back – the person holding Steve was now holding him back –

“I need to be with him-”

_“Steve-”_

“No – I – I need to be with him – I can’t leave him-”

_“Steve.”_

Steve’s head was taken in two hands and he found his face turned towards Robin’s, her nose inches from him.

“Steve, you’re in shock,” she explained gently but firmly. “The paramedics will do what they can, but they need to get him to a hospital right now.”

“I can go with him-”

“_Steve,_” Robin said softly. “You’re in shock. You need to see a doctor. You can’t go with him.”

Something in her words filtered through what was left of his brain function – perhaps sheer exhaustion just left him unable to fight – he glanced over at Billy to see hands easing him efficiently onto a gurney – Max was hovering by his side, Lucas shaken off, standing with empty hands in the middle of the room.

“Max…” Steve stammered out, “Max, please don’t leave him.”

It was a quiet plea, closer to begging, his voice thick with barely repressed tears as he felt his world untether itself – he was floating – _Ozerov had just taken Billy away with the conditional promise of saving him – _but Max gave no sign that she had heard Steve – she paused briefly at the door, but she didn’t look back at him. She simply followed her brother out as the paramedics rushed him out of Steve’s sight.

A figure – someone Steve didn’t recognise – bent down in front of him. Steve saw a mouth move – he vaguely heard the word _“son” _thrown in his general direction – a hand was on his shoulder – its weight was unfamiliar – it was bigger than Robin’s – he flinched as a hand touched his face –

A small but powerful white light shone at his eyes – he tried to blink – tried to shut it out – but the hand hadn’t moved from his face – it was holding his eyes open – _he didn’t want it – Jesus, there were other people – Robin had a concussion – what the fuck was she doing looking after him – where was she?_

“Don’t worry, son, we’re looking after her,” the mouth in front of his face said – Steve hadn’t realised he’d said any of this aloud – he couldn’t hear his own voice – there was a ringing in his ears – _surely he would have at least felt his mouth move?_

The longer he focused on the feelings in his face, the more he could feel the tears still pouring down his face – _he wanted them to stop – he wanted to stop – to stop altogether – he could barely hold his own body upright –_

He blinked and suddenly the hair on the face in front of him seemed to be falling onto him – he could just make out the crack in the wall – _no – the ceiling – he was on his back – hands were on him – holding him down – he didn’t want to be held down – why was he moving?_

He blinked again – the crack in the ceiling was changing to a slightly more intact ceiling – it was moving – rolling over his head like credits at the end of a movie – _was he moving?_ He blinked again – the ceiling was replaced with a stairwell – a corridor – what was left of the foyer – _the sky – _a swirling, star-filled sky as he felt cool air on his face – there were flashing lights, bright colours catching the faces above them – they were painted red – a second later they were blue – alternating red – blue – red – blue –

He closed his eyes against the flashing colours to be met with a kaleidoscope behind his eyelids – he felt a wave of dizziness overtake him – he forced his eyes open – the flashing lights were gone – _not completely, he could still see red and blue glints glancing off the polished metal surface – _but a dim, white light was shining above him – he was looking directly into it – he turned his head – hands were in front of his face a moment later – someone was easing him up as he felt a strange heave in his stomach –

_“Easy, son,” _the mouth said. _“Into here, come on now.”_

He realised what was happening a moment later – _and evidently several moments after the people around him _– as he tasted bile in his mouth. His stomach gave another heave that made his aching abdomen protest – _he hadn’t even realised how much his stomach was hurting – how much his whole body was aching – _

A metal basin swam in front of his face as he felt the contents of his stomach leave his mouth – he coughed – _he couldn’t move – he felt himself going limp – _hands were on his shoulders, easing him back onto the bed as he found himself staring up at the white light that hovered above his head. The world faded into a blur as he felt something rumble underneath him – a moment later, the rumbling smoothed out into a soft purr of an engine as the light above him was all he could see.

-:-

The waiting room was cold and sterile as Paul sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair. He was the only occupant, save for the small doorway that led to a desk where a receptionist sat in front of a phone, completely ignoring Paul’s existence. Paul might have been offended if he hadn’t been ignoring her just as much, his mind racing as he tried to piece together the huge gap in his memory that featured the drive to where he was now.

_Steven slammed the car door shut on Powell… he remembered that much… Powell had given a terrifying cough that had finally made Paul turn the car around… but then what? He remembered a dark road – his headlights illuminating the required distance in front of him – there had been no streetlights – just the constant lines on the road vanishing underneath him – he’d followed the road to – where, exactly? There had been no turns off the road that he could remember – he’d just followed the road as it wound through the forest – there had been a lot of trees, he could remember that much – and one road sign – yes, there _had _been a turnoff – a sign with a little hospital symbol – there had been a name next to it – something about a medical training facility – it had had a proper name, but it was blurry in his mind – he’d blindly followed it, blindly assumed that this was the hospital he was aiming for – because that was right – Steven had told him to go to a military hospital near Hawkins Laboratory – it was coming back to him – he’d been following the road to Hawkins Laboratory when he’d passed the turnoff and decided to try it – there couldn’t be _too _many hospitals in and around Hawkins – there was security at the barrier – they had taken one look at Powell and let him in – there had been a small team of people who had whisked Powell away on a gurney – through a set of double doors – Paul had tried to follow but he’d been stopped – they’d sent him into this room – told him to sit – they’d bring him news when they had any news to bring…_

That had been a little over an hour ago. He’d been pushed into a chair and left alone with his thoughts. He’d spent his time trying to piece together what he’d altogether failed to remember – and desperately trying not to think about what he could never forget. He couldn’t bear to think about Steven – _Paul had just let him go – he’d been right there and Paul had just let him go – to do what? Those things were after him – those things – what were those things? There was no animal on earth that looked like those things – no animal they could have naturally evolved from on earth – why were they going after Steven? How had he gotten involved with them? Was _that _where he’d been? Was he in danger now? Was he even _alive _now? Paul should have tried harder to make Steven come with him – should have tried differently – shouldn’t have tried to have Steven arrested so that he could come home – oh God – Steven probably thought Paul hated him – he might be dead – he might have died thinking that Paul hated him – Paul would never get the chance to tell him that the opposite was the truth – oh God – he’d been so angry – Steven was gone – _again – _and Paul had let him go, believing that Paul hated him – he hadn’t even had a chance to tell Linda – oh God – _

A wave of nausea threatened to engulf him as he pressed a hand against his mouth – he leant forwards, closing his eyes – _images of Powell lying on the floor as that _thing _tore into him were painted on the insides of his eyelids – _he opened his eyes – _there was still blood on his shirt, stark red against the white fabric – _he heard his stomach heave something into his throat – he gave a small cough _that sounded far too much like Powell spluttering on his own blood _– he could feel tears springing into his eyes –

He tasted bile on his tongue, felt something in his mouth, and got up to move towards the bathroom. He didn’t open his mouth as the receptionist pointed him towards a door with a stick man on it, a well-schooled expression hiding a lot from her face. Paul did everything he could not to outright sprint towards the bathroom before he burst into a cubicle and collapsed to his knees as the contents of his stomach emptied into the toilet in front of him.

His body gave another heave as he tried to fight back the tears in his eyes. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to ignore the images of the night that flashed in technicolour whenever he did so – _he didn’t want to watch the movie playing behind his eyes _– he felt himself shaking – his breathing was coming in tiny gasps, barely deep enough to reach his lungs – _he had to get a grip – fuck – fuck – FUCK –_

He didn’t know how long he was hunched over on the floor of the hospital toilet, running sweaty hands through his hair until he felt the damp locks clump together to tickle his forehead. He fought to pull himself to his feet. He barely remembered to flush the toilet before splashing some water on his face and stumbling gracelessly out into the reception area.

The woman on the desk was giving him that same unreadable look as he approached her.

“Can I…” he croaked, “can I use the phone?”

She took in the state of him. He probably looked dreadful – he needed to call Linda to tell her – _what? That their little boy was alive but Paul had used a patented blend of too much and not enough to let him run off to potentially get himself killed for a second time? That he was stuck in a hospital he couldn’t leave because apparently monsters are real and they had nearly killed him before trying to kill the reason they’d failed right in front of his eyes and he’d had to drive someone to hospital while praying that he didn’t die on the way and that was why when he would eventually show up he would be covered in blood and that they’d probably need to get the car re-upholstered because he didn’t know how to get blood out of leather?_

The woman at the desk didn’t even so much as blink before she answered. “No.”

“_Excuse me?_”

A modicum of indignation sparked to life inside him. _He needed to call Linda – she was alone in that house worried sick –_

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you use the phone,” she said matter-of-factly.

_Well, if ever there was a time to play the ‘Mayor’ card, it was now._

“Do you know who I am?” Paul tried to sound a little more authoritative than the shaking, sweating, blood-stained puking wreck that he evidently looked to be.

The careful mask cracked just long enough for the woman to shoot him a supremely unimpressed, withering look. Whether she knew or not, she clearly didn’t care.

“You need clearance to make any calls,” she sighed in a tone of voice so long-suffering it was almost artistic. Paul absurdly wondered if she and Linda should get together for a drink.

“I’m the Mayor,” Paul tried for a smile.

She raised a single eyebrow. “Does the Mayor have _clearance?_”

It was a rhetorical question and Paul knew it. Paul clenched and unclenched his fists before forcing himself to take the deepest breath he could manage.

“I… I need to call my wife,” Paul’s voice sounded hoarse. “She’s at home, she’s probably worried sick about me – our house got broken into a couple of days ago – she’s at home all alone – I just need to tell her where I am-”

“Doctor Owens needs to speak to you,” she said. “He needs to talk to you about what happened tonight. Until he does, you can’t make any outside calls or leave the premises.”

“You can’t just _keep me here-_”

“This is a matter of national security, Mr Harrington,” the woman said firmly. “I’m sorry, but any phone calls will have to wait until after the doctor is free. I suggest you take a seat.”

On another night, Paul might have pressed the issue, but whether he was too tired to start a fight or whether he understood that this woman had the weight of the government conspiracy that had taken Steven from him – _wherever he may be now _– he felt himself backing down, almost involuntarily.

“Can I at least…” he began, not entirely sure where he was going with the sentence. The idea of sitting in that uncomfortable chair watching the clock hands make their slow journey across the numbers on the face was almost enough to make him feel sick again. He needed to _do _something – quite what he didn’t know – but there had to be _something _he could do –

“Can I at least… go and clean my car?” he finally managed. “It’s just in the parking lot. The passenger seat is covered in blood – if I take that home, my wife will have a heart attack.”

She gave him a distinctly unimpressed look. Paul could practically read the objections crossing through her mind like a book.

“I can’t exactly _go _anywhere in the car,” he pointed out with a pathetic attempt at a smile. “Your security would stop me.”

Paul could see her making calculations in her mind. Eventually, she sighed and opened a drawer before handing him a half-open pack of wet wipes in a token gesture of permission.

-:-

The white ceiling had stopped scrolling above Steve’s head. The light seemed to be staying resolutely in place. The four white walls weren’t moving around him – _or he wasn’t moving within them – _a smell of _clean _was so strong it was cutting through the smell of sweat, blood and smoke that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his nostrils. He was half-sitting, half-lying on something that was – dare he remember what it felt like – _comfortable._

His muscles still ached with every movement, but at least they were cooperating now. The hands that had been floating around him were gone, no longer ready with a basin for him to cough up whatever his body had rejected, no longer easing him up like he needed relief after having water poured into his nose and mouth. The room was quiet, just the sound of breathing.

He was dimly aware that he wasn’t alone, though. He was aware of other people in the room – there was the sound of breathing that didn’t quite line up with his own breathing pattern, the occasional rustle of movement, but for the most part the other occupants were content to leave him alone with his thoughts.

It was a shame that he didn’t particularly _want _to be alone with his thoughts.

_What had he done?_

He’d killed Billy. He’d seen the man he loved become controlled by the Mind Flayer and he’d set him on fire. He’d burnt his leg until Billy had been begging for mercy – whether it had been genuine or just another trick by the Mind Flayer to play on Steve’s feelings for Billy, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. Either way, Steve hadn’t followed through _then, _instead leaving Billy to fall completely under the Mind Flayer’s control. He’d let the Mind Flayer use Billy to throw Max across the room before Steve had got into a fight with him. He could feel _every single hit _he’d landed on Billy – his hands felt strange, tacky, like they were covered in blood that wasn’t there – he could feel his forehead throbbing from where he’d snapped his head up against Billy’s. He’d _thrown _Billy down off that broken edge to the floor below before landing on top of him – _Billy probably had broken ribs or something from that_ – but, as if that wasn’t enough, he’d shot Billy in the side mere seconds after hearing Billy tell him – _as Billy _– that he loved him. He’d given Steve an opportunity and Steve hadn’t hesitated – he’d seen the Mind Flayer and shot him before burning him until his heart gave out – _he’d killed Billy and then held his body – his too-still body –_

His breath hitched in his throat as he forced his mind away from those few moments. He couldn’t bear to hear the echo of Max’s scream in his memory again. He couldn’t bear to feel Billy’s wrist under his fingers with no tell-tale pulse, no rise and fall of Billy’s chest or soft brushing of air on his hand as he’d cradled Billy’s face. He couldn’t bear to think of California, so warm and sunny as dreams went up in smoke. As hard as he tried, Steve couldn’t bear to think of the voice, offering a glimmer of hope with four words – he couldn’t bring himself to consider that they might be real – _he couldn’t face them being real only for someone to turn around and tell him that they were not – _

_I’ve got a pulse I’ve got a pulse I’ve got a pulse –_

Steve knew how damaging hope could be. Billy had been so still under his hands – he’d felt Billy’s wrist for there to be nothing – if he had to lose Billy, he knew he wouldn’t be able to take it after daring to allow himself to think that Billy might be okay –

_But he couldn’t bear to let go of that hope –_

“Hey.”

Steve blinked as he noticed the voice break the silence next to him. He forced himself to turn his head to see Dustin standing there with a cup in his hand. Steve’s brain took a moment to process it – the voice had been so hoarse that he hadn’t actually registered that it had been Dustin who had spoken. It was only now, faced with Dustin approaching him that he made the link.

“Do you want-” Dustin began in that same unnatural tone that didn’t even sound like Dustin _because Dustin could talk for hours and his voice would never get hoarse, Steve had heard Dustin talk solidly through a seven-hour Dungeons and Dragons game that he’d been roped into babysitting one weekend because it was at Will’s and Joyce had a shift and Jonathan had made plans with Nancy and it wasn’t like Steve had any friends his own age to spend his weekend with and Dustin was still capable of shrieking like a banshee throughout the entirety of the climax –_

“You should drink some water,” Dustin finally finished, opting for something slightly more firm and unyielding rather than simply asking if Steve wanted some water. He could say no, politely decline with a shake of the head or a small _“I’m fine,” _but with Dustin standing there, being as assertive as he could be with a voice that wasn’t his, he couldn’t quite bring himself to have an argument. Dustin pressed the cup into his hands and Steve sipped it slowly.

Dustin hovered next to him as Steve emptied the cup. It occurred to Steve that he had a babysitter – or, more accurately, _four _babysitters. Now that he cared to look, he could see Nancy and Jonathan hovering by the door with Will while Dustin took the cup away and refilled it, placing it on a table next to Steve. Steve forced himself to take in the rest of his surroundings – he was on a hospital bed, propped half-upright on cushions while the plastic chairs that did not look remotely comfortable lined the wall. Will was currently curled up in on himself in one while Jonathan stood sentinel beside him. Nancy was leaning on the back of another chair, not quite letting herself sit down but looking increasingly pale. It briefly occurred to Steve that his was the only bed in the room – he wondered fleetingly where the others were – _Robin had a concussion, maybe a doctor was treating her? Was El getting seen to – did doctors _know _how to treat superpower fatigue? Was Max getting seen to – no, she was with Billy – oh God – Billy –_

The door swung open before he could go any further down _that _mental rabbit hole to reveal Doctor Owens. In his shadow was a petite nurse with a gentle smile, her brown hair pulled back into a tight bun at the top of her neck.

“Hey, son,” Owens said with a warm smile and a far-too-sympathetic voice. “I hear you’ve had quite the night.”

Steve didn’t answer, instead looking down at his knees.

“Let’s get you checked out, see if you only need to stay a few hours or if you’ll need to stay longer, how does that sound?”

Steve looked back at him, his eyebrows cocking slightly as he tilted his head a fraction.

It was evidently all the permission Owens needed. “Great. This is Nurse Roberts; she’s going to be helping me if that’s okay with you. Now, do you want someone to stay with you?”

The idea of having one of the kids or Nancy or Jonathan seeing the state of Steve was not an enticing idea. He shook his head slightly as he swung his legs around off the edge of the bed and hunched over his knees.

Dustin immediately began to protest. “Steve-”

“Dustin,” Will said softly as he followed Jonathan out of the room.

Dustin still gave Steve that same devastated look like he wasn’t sure whether or not Steve was going to fall apart at the seams if he was left alone – _hell, Steve wasn’t sure whether or not Steve would fall apart at the seams, period. _Still, Steve really couldn’t bear to let Dustin see this. He gave Dustin the smallest, most forced smile he’d ever given.

“Go check on… on Max,” he croaked – _and if Steve had thought _Dustin’s _voice_ _sounded different, it was nothing compared to how dreadful _he _sounded._

Dustin’s eyes closed at what Steve was fairly certain were the first words he’d uttered since breaking down over Billy’s body. Dustin gave Steve a tight nod before following Will out of the room. Nancy was still hovering by the door, but she locked eyes with Steve and gave him a smile almost as forced as the one Steve had just given Dustin before leaving the room and closing the door behind her with a soft click.

“Okay, Steve,” Owens said softly, his voice still too gentle and sympathetic for Steve’s liking. “Let’s start just by taking your measurements.”

He guided Steve over to a scale in the corner of the room, sketching down a quick note of the number displayed. Steve didn’t look down at the display – he didn’t think he wanted to know. Owens gestured back to the bed.

“Can you take off your top for me?” Owens asked as Steve settled himself down on the edge of the mattress.

Steve blinked up at Owens before complying. Owens, to his credit, didn’t let any visible reaction to the myriad of scars on Steve’s body show. Steve did his best to ignore the nurse whose eyes widened a fraction before some training kicked in. He did his best to ignore everyone, instead focusing all his attention on a seam in the linoleum floor. The seal between the seams was largely pristine, but there was dirt gathering just on the edges, a thin line of black between the rubber seal and the fresh sheets.

Owens started methodically looking over at the scars on his torso. He slowly peeled back the old bandage around his wrist that Billy had put on after breaking into Melvald’s to inspect the torn skin underneath. The flesh had largely knitted together and scabbed over, but Owens still wiped it down with some more antiseptic before redressing it. Owens then set about looking at the claw marks in his shoulders – the two wounds from their successful escape from the Russians that Billy _hadn’t _cleaned or stitched. The nurse carefully applied a numbing agent of some form before stepping away and flitting around with a surgical needle and some antiseptic while Owens stitched them up in silence.

A warm, gentle hand ghosted over the four white scars that sat on his top ribs. Owens looked at Steve expectantly, as though asking for permission. Steve looked at him with a tiny shrug as Owens started feeling the path of the ribs that the Russians had broken, checking for himself to see that they’d healed right. He looked down at Steve’s side, noting down the location of a large white scar that Steve didn’t remember getting but seemed terribly important to Owens. He pulled a stethoscope from around his neck and pressed it against Steve’s back before instructing Steve to take four deep breaths, repositioning the stethoscope each time.

Owens then set about looking at the rest of his back – the part of himself that Steve _hadn’t _seen at all. He didn’t particularly want to think about it, focusing on the same seam in the floor, on the dirt gathering there – _a cold cloth ran over his left shoulder blade – _the dirt gathering in the seam was clearly being held back from the surface of the floor by rigorous cleaning – _he could hear Owens let out a breath that was slightly more forced than before –_

“Okay, son, we’re done up here,” Owens broke the silence that had settled since the start of the examination. “You can put your shirt back on, but can you take your pants off for me?”

In any other circumstances, Steve might have felt embarrassed, or exposed, or vulnerable bearing the scars of his nightmare to two borderline strangers, but the fact that he’d already forgotten the nurse’s name and the fact that Owens already knew most of the worst of what had happened mitigated any of those feelings of shame. He was too exhausted to feel vulnerable – he couldn’t fight it – he had nothing left to fight with – the feelings were dulled to a light touch compared to the constant twisting blade in his heart at the mere thought of _that night –_

_No._

He brought his attention back to the seam in the linoleum as Owens glanced methodically down his legs, taking in the various scars before pausing at the mottled skin from his knee down to his foot, the souvenir of his own encounter with the Mind Flayer and the flamethrower.

“When did this happen?” Owens asked gently, no hint of judgement and the barest hint of pity.

Steve looked down at his own leg – _he tried not to think about his leg – how Billy’s body might look one day – assuming Billy survived – no, he wasn’t going there –_

“When I – I had to get it out of me,” Steve muttered, his voice barely more than a whisper.

The nurse looked perplexed, but Owens understood, giving him a tiny nod before resuming his examination. Now that Steve was watching, he saw Owens make a small note on a chart in his hand – _had he been making notes all this time?_

“Okay,” Owens finally straightened up with a warm smile. “We’re all done.”

He muttered a soft dismissal to the nurse while Steve pulled his pants back on. Steve sat down on the edge of the bed while Owens pulled one of the chairs over and sat down to face him.

“So the good news is that there’s nothing that requires immediate hospitalisation, which is more than can be said for some of your friends,” Owens explained, keeping up a warm demeanour. “You mentioned broken ribs and difficulty breathing in the past, but your ribs feel normal now and your lungs sound clear. I’d still like to get an x-ray for peace of mind, just to see that they’ve healed up, but I think if you haven’t had any problems with them since, they should be okay. That said, I want you to lay off the smokes – at least for now. We’ll book you in for a proper scan to see if there’s any lasting damage, but it probably won’t be for a couple of days.

All things considered, if you’ve got somewhere to go, I’m happy to release you tonight, but only into someone’s care. However, you’re severely malnourished and dehydrated – you may not be starving to death imminently but after such a prolonged period of unhealthy rationing, you’ve lost a lot of weight. You currently weigh around a hundred pounds, and to put that into perspective, I’d expect someone of your height to be weighing a hundred and forty pounds _at least_. Long story short, you’re going to need to put some weight back on, okay? And, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean going out and eating your ideal body weight in burgers and cake and all those other things your mom told you would make you fat.”

Owens gave a chuckle while Steve managed a tiny smile.

“I know, you’d think months of gulag food would be a license to eat unhealthily for a little while, but it’ll have to wait for a bit, because I’m going to start you on a diet to avoid something called refeeding syndrome, do you know what that is?”

Steve shook his head.

“Right, well,” Owens launched into an explanation, clearly expecting no other answer. “Refeeding syndrome is something that happens when someone who’s basically been starving starts eating too much too quickly. It… it overloads the body. Your body’s not used to lots of food coming in at once so rather than jumping straight back into it, we’re going to ease your body back onto a normal diet. So in addition to three meals a day, we’re going to add three snacks as well, so that during the day you’re eating _something _every two to three hours_. _And again, it’s not going to be candy bars. It’s actually going to be pretty boring, just to make sure you’re getting used to getting all the various vitamins and food groups that your body needs. But it’s really important that you stick to it as best you can, because if you overload your body, it can lead to cardiac abnormalities. It might take a little while for you to put on the weight you need to put on, probably up to a few months, but we’ll book you in for regular check-ups to make sure everything’s going okay. I know today’s probably not going to be ideal to start it, particularly given that it’s already almost three in the morning and you look like you need sleep more than anyone I’ve ever seen, and – well, I saw myself in the mirror while I was running Hawkins Lab.”

Owens gave another chuckle, but Steve’s eyes fell to the floor – _Billy was always getting on his case about sleeping, but the idea of sleeping _now _– of facing the nightmares that were undoubtedly waiting for him – particularly after everything that had happened tonight –_

“You’ve not been sleeping much for a while, have you?”

Steve numbly shook his head. He felt tears sting at his eyes as a lump rose in his throat.

“Billy always tells me to,” Steve choked out. “But… I just… every time I try, I can’t… I can’t _stop. _I can’t shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen… And I can’t stop thinking about everything that _has _happened – and – and I’m _scared_… I’m scared of what… It’s really stupid – I _know _it’s really stupid…”

“It’s not stupid,” Owens breathed, a very understanding smile on his face. “What is it you’re scared of?”

Steve tilted his face slightly, tears slipping down his cheeks. “It _is _stupid…” he muttered. “I’m scared of… of my own fucking _nightmares…_”

Steve chanced a glance at Owens, whose understanding smile only widened. “That’s not stupid at all,” he said gently, giving a small chuckle as Steve raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ve been through something incredibly traumatic. You’ve spent an incredibly long time in a life-or-death situation. It’s no wonder you’re having trouble stopping and switching off. But Mr Hargrove was right. You’re completely exhausted. We can help with what you’re struggling with. In the long term, we’ll set you up with a therapist who can help you with strategies to switch off and deal with the nightmares, and in the short term, I’m going to prescribe something to help you sleep – we’ll review it on a regular basis, because what I’m going to prescribe is strong and also pretty addictive, and I don’t want you becoming dependent on it. So I’ll prescribe you a dose for today as well as a dose for every night for the next week. I’ll also get you a specific meal plan for the next week – it’s going to feel like a lot, particularly after eight months of near-starvation, but I want you to try and keep to it as much as possible, okay? As for today, I know it’s going to be strange and near impossible to try and get a normal schedule going, so what I’ll suggest is we’ll give you something to eat now while you’re waiting for your x-ray, and when you get home, take a dose of the sleeping medication and try and sleep as much as you can. You’ll probably wake up at some point in the afternoon, possibly early evening, so have whatever meals are still on the schedule for day one and then go to sleep at a relatively sensible time and start day one of the schedule of tomorrow. Treat today like… like a day zero – I think that’s what those kids call a practice session of that game they play – what’s it called, Dragons and Darkness?”

“Dungeons and Dragons,” Steve corrected, a small smile twisting the corners of his mouth up.

Owens shook his head with a laugh. “I knew it had dragons _somewhere _in it… Will would bring it up occasionally and tried to explain it once or twice. I never _did _get the gist of it…”

He trailed off as Steve’s smile faded. Steve had questions shining in his eyes –

“Is Billy going to be okay?” Steve blurted out, a broken sound as his voice cracked on the last word.

Owens’ smile didn’t drop completely but definitely dimmed noticeably, falling into a sad expression.

“Honestly?” Owens tried for a sympathetic look. “I can’t answer that right now. But he’s alive, and that’s something. And we’re going to do everything we can to keep him that way. We’re not going to give up on him. There’s things we can do, and we’ve got some of the finest doctors in the country here to do it.”

A note of pride crept into Owens’ voice as he smiled at Steve, but the ambiguity of the answer was not entirely reassuring. Steve wanted to see Billy – _to reassure himself that what he’d heard on the floor of Hawkins Lab wasn’t a dream –_

“He’s in the ICU at the moment,” Owens seemed to read his mind. “He’s not able to have visitors just yet.”

Steve swallowed as he nodded in understanding.

“Now,” Owens shifted back to a businesslike tone. “I should probably let your friends get back to looking after you and go and figure out how best to treat a passed-out fourteen-year-old who’s exhausted herself with overuse of government-issued superpowers without letting on to my colleagues who, exactly, she is and what, exactly, we’re treating her for. Let it never be said that this job doesn’t provide altogether unique challenges and opportunities.”

Owens gave another brave attempt at a laugh. Steve looked up at him.

“I…” Steve muttered, feeling the tiniest smile crook the corner of his lips. “I hear chocolate pudding helps.”

-:-

Hopper watched Jonathan and Nancy hovering by the door that hid Steve from the world. Nancy was pacing up and down a three-foot-long stretch of corridor while Jonathan was sitting in a chair opposite Will, who simply looked numb. It was a common trait amongst just about everyone.

Hopper had been given a brief once-over, the gunshot wound from the previous night re-stitched and bandaged before he was handed a set of scrubs in lieu of the Russian uniform he’d arrived in, which was a very definite improvement. Joyce was currently getting a similar once-over from a nurse, but Hopper had opted to check on El, sleeping in a bed in a room across the corridor with Max and Robin. Robin had been the most vocal of the patients by quite some margin, slurring protests about the IV in her arm. Owens, while not thrilled about the slurred speech, was nonetheless taking it as a positive that she was speaking quite as consistently as she was.

Hopper was surprised to see Dustin walk nervously into the room with the three girls. He glanced over at El’s bed where she was still sleeping, tucked under a blanket with the worst of the blood cleaned off her face. Apparently one of Owens’ colleagues was convinced she’d had a brain haemorrhage and was trying to book her in for a scan, but thus far had failed to secure permission from Hopper as her legal guardian. Hopper wasn’t necessarily averse to the idea of El having a brain scan, particularly after how far she’d pushed herself, but Hopper wasn’t prepared to let anyone other than Owens look at any abnormalities that may come up. As such, she was lying there, dead to the world while Mike sat next to her, a slightly desperate look on his face as though she might explode into a cloud of dust at any moment. Hopper, from his position by the door, had to remind himself that Mike had seen that happen once before.

Mike glanced up at Dustin as he walked in, the first to notice the new arrival. Dustin offered him a tiny upturn of his lips while he walked past the end of El’s bed before Robin noticed him around the curtains.

“Dustin,” she frowned at him, her voice soft. “How’s Steve?”

Dustin pulled his face into something slightly closer to a smile. “Owens is checking him out now,” he explained softly, turning towards her in what was evidently a slight detour, judging by his hesitant manner. “How are you?”

She huffed. “You know… _concussion…_” she held up her wrist with the IV sticking out, glaring at it like it had run over her puppy. “I’ve got a fun night here with _this _in my arm and I’m not allowed to sleep, which isn’t fair.”

Dustin gave her a sympathetic smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes, despite his best efforts.

“I hate hospitals,” she grumbled, her hand falling to the mattress with a soft thud as she glared at the offending tube half-heartedly before looking back at Dustin.

Dustin looked down at the floor before glancing at the far side of the room where Max was mostly hidden behind a curtain with Lucas. Robin followed his gaze, understanding crossing her features before she gave him a nod and a gentle push away from her.

Max was curled up on the mattress with Lucas awkwardly perched by the pillow, Max completely curled into his side. Her face was blotchy and red, her eyes dry for the moment but completely bloodshot.

“Hey,” Dustin tried for a smile but knew that he probably looked like he had toothache.

Max gave no sign that she’d heard him or even noticed his presence, but Lucas looked up at him, returning an equally pained smile.

“Hey,” he muttered before he and Dustin both decided to stop pretending like any part of the night was okay.

“Any news on Billy?” Dustin asked, directing the question at Max.

Max didn’t respond but Dustin felt a twist of guilt as fresh tears welled up in her eyes and silently spilled down her cheeks. Lucas looked at him numbly and just shook his head.

“Do you want me to wait with you?”

It was the only peace offering he could think to offer. The reasons for their falling out seemed so distant, so _insignificant _after the events of the night. For Dustin’s part, he had finally understood Max’s perspective when faced with the chance to save Hopper and Mrs Byers. He had seen the devastation in Will’s face, in El’s eyes as their worlds came crashing down with just a few words. He could recognise the pain he’d felt eight months earlier magnified a hundredfold as El had been left without the person who had protected her from men worse than bad, who had cared for her and taught her the meaning of family and what it meant to have a father, with no idea what her future would look like. He had recognised it in Will’s face and Jonathan’s voice as their futures became almost as uncertain, with Jonathan either shouldering the responsibility of looking after Will or the guilt of letting Lonnie do so.

When presented with a way to undo that devastation, there had never been a question.

Max didn’t blink but Dustin found a plastic chair and pulled it up towards the end of the bed. Lucas gave him a tight smile as he did so while Max readjusted herself slightly, one leg stretching further down the bed towards Dustin before she finally closed her eyes.

Hopper glanced over at the awkward trio in the corner before looking down at El, lying on the bed by the door with Mike watching over her. Hopper walked over, crouching down beside her and gently adjusting the blanket, pulling it slightly further under her chin. She stirred slightly under the touch, prompting Mike to lean forwards with alarm (or possibly hope) before her breathing evened back out into sleep. Hopper found himself smiling slightly – he needed to talk to her about what she’d done, because for all that he had been glad that he and Joyce had been saved, that they had been able to make it back home to their children, it had been a _really _stupid risk – Hopper would never forget the sight of El collapsing, blood coming from places it should _never _have been coming from to stain her face, her hair, to still her chest as she pushed herself too far, only to push herself even further a matter of minutes later.

Only the shadow in the doorway could have caused Hopper to glance up. Joyce was standing in the doorway, dressed in a fresh pair of scrubs in place of the Russian uniform. She smiled at him weakly and Hopper could see etched on her face a certain doubt, a disbelief of what they had seen, a reluctance to at last believe that it was all over. They’d been here before almost two years ago only for it all to come back less than a year later. Behind her, he could see Owens coming out of the room across the hall as the corridor emptied, its occupants immediately going back inside to check on the figure still hunched over the side of the bed. Dustin glanced over from his corner before looking back at Max, still curled into Lucas’ side. Lucas gave him a single nod and Dustin stood up, but he didn’t immediately leave. He hesitated by Max’s side, a hand hovering over her. He ended up putting it near Max’s hand on the bed, close enough that it was still reassuring but not touching her – an offering of comfort, not an imposition. Max didn’t seem to notice it, but when Dustin finally turned to go, he felt a finger ghost over the tip of his finger. He paused to look back at her with a small smile before turning and walking out the door.

Hopper, however, found his eye being caught by Owens, who was watching him intently over Joyce’s shoulder. He reluctantly got up and walked out into the hallway, following Owens and Joyce far enough down the hall for the three of them to have a quiet conversation without risk of being overheard.

Owens finally turned to Hopper and Joyce with a bleak look on his face.

“What’s the matter, Doc?”

Owens glanced at the door that hid Steve from the rest of the world with a shaky sigh. “Just been a long night is all,” Owens breathed, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Been a long night for all of us, Doc,” Hopper sighed.

Owens gave him a small, tight smile that didn’t brush the sadness in his eyes. “The kid’s had it rough.”

There was no question of who Owens was talking about. Joyce glanced behind her at the closed door behind them, a heartbroken expression on her face. Hopper didn’t need to look at the door, just glanced over her face and at the momentary slip of Owens’ professional mask to reveal an expression of utter devastation.

“He going to be okay?” Hopper asked.

“Physically? Yes,” Owens shrugged. “Needs to put on a lot of weight and get some proper sleep, but we can help with that. I normally wouldn’t discharge him just yet, but…”

Owens trailed off, his eyes drawing back to the door. Hopper looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to finish his train of thought. Eventually, when he got tired of waiting, Hopper cleared his throat, startling Owens back into the present.

“I’m more worried about his mental state than anything physical at the moment,” Owens explained. “He’s been through… well, I can’t even _imagine _what he’s been through. And for all that he’s done, escaping the Soviets, saving us last night, _all _of what he did tonight… underneath all that, he’s a kid who just wants to go home. If that can happen… that’s going to do more for him than anything we can do here.”

Hopper felt his stomach drop as his eyes fell shut. He could still hear Paul Harrington’s judgement coldly handed down to Steve, the words _“arrest them” _shattering the kid’s heart. Paul Harrington had been out for vengeance against Hopper and everyone else that had been responsible for taking Steve from them, including Steve himself, apparently. While Hopper had meant what he’d said to Steve in that closet in the Upside Down, Paul Harrington was not the kind of man who was famed for his sympathy when he didn’t understand something. On top of everything else, they couldn’t ask the kid to deal with that. Not tonight.

“I know his father is here,” Owens said heavily, breaking the silence that had stretched. “He brought in someone who wasn’t in great shape. I haven’t worked out what to tell him yet-”

“He knows Steve’s alive,” Joyce interjected.

Owens broke off, looking at Joyce, confused. Hopper felt something ease in his stomach at the realisation that Harrington had made it to the hospital and that Powell had been _alive _when he had. Joyce glanced over at Hopper, reading the thoughts on his face.

“We… Those _things _attacked a roadblock the police set up for us,” Joyce explained hesitantly. “They’d found the bodies at my house – I – I _think… _I don’t know, I’m not really sure… But they tried to arrest us before those _things _attacked us. We only just got away, but Paul Harrington was there and he – he saw Steve…”

Understanding and trepidation crossed Owens’ face in equal measure. He sighed, running a hand through his curls and back over his face.

“Right,” Owens sighed before forcing himself to take a deep breath. “Well, that complicates things-”

“I want to read him in,” Hopper said.

He hadn’t quite heard the thought explode out of his mouth, but he felt his mouth form the words and saw the ringing silence that followed, Owens looking at him like he’d grown an extra head.

“Jim,” Owens said quietly, slowly. “You know-”

“I’m not asking us to go public with this,” Hopper said. “I just want to tell _him._”

“And if he tells someone?” Owens raised an eyebrow. “About that girl of yours?”

Hopper shook his head slightly, looking down at the ground. “I don’t think he will,” he muttered. “He’s got something to lose from it now. And he knows what it feels like to lose it. The kid went through everything he went through trying to keep El and the others safe. I don’t think his dad will want to risk jeopardizing that.”

Owens sighed, clearly reluctant as he looked at the floor. His face twisted into a grimace. “Jim, I get where you’re coming from-”

“What _else _are we going to tell him, Doc?” Hopper said exasperatedly. “He saw those _things, _he knows about the link between us and the Lab, I don’t know what he _thinks _he knows but he’s not going to leave it alone – not until he finds the truth. And with the kid back, you want to – _what? _Send him home with no explanation and another NDA? _Damn it, _Doc, he has a right to know what happened to his son. And…”

Hopper felt himself deflate as he glanced back over his shoulder at the door before looking at Joyce and back to Owens.

“And the kid needs _someone _at home who knows what he’s dealing with,” Hopper sighed, his eyes falling to the floor.

He could see Joyce glancing over at Owens in agreement. He could tell what was on _her _mind – she wouldn’t have been able to cope with what had happened to Will, let alone be able to help him nearly as much as she had, she wouldn’t have been able to drag him back from that monster’s grasp, if she hadn’t had an inkling of what had happened to him. He turned back to Owens and saw the exact moment the argument died from Owens’ eyes.

“Fine,” Owens said reluctantly. “If you’re _absolutely_ sure this won’t backfire. But he signs an NDA before we tell him _anything. _I feel for the kid, but I’m not prepared to risk the safety of this country for the sake of his home life.”

-:-

The packet of wet wipes that the receptionist had given Paul was not a substitute for a professional cleaning, but it had done _something. _His car looked less like something ripped from a horror movie and the metallic smell was offset by a slight odour of soap. Paul found an old blanket in the trunk and draped it over the passenger seat in a vague hope of making the car look a fraction more presentable. It worked. A bit.

He tossed the finished packet – now full of blood-stained, crumpled wipes – into a trashcan by the door of the reception area as the receptionist raised an eyebrow at him. Paul couldn’t help but feel slightly affronted at her attitude until he caught sight of the two people near her, hovering by a door.

A myriad of thoughts flooded Paul’s mind as he locked eyes with Hopper, standing there in a set of hospital scrubs and an unreadable expression. A man Paul had barely remembered the face of from their only other in-person meeting but whose picture Paul had since become desperately familiar with finally caught sight of him, a winning smile hitched up onto his face that hid anything meaningful from view. Paul didn’t so much as feel sick again as feel a thousand words, questions, _demands _threaten to fly from his mouth in a scream. _I want that body exhumed – where is my son – I want to know why you lied to me about my son’s death – where has he been – how could you do this to us – what is going on – what were those things that attacked us – what have you done – is Steven alright – why did we bury Steven and leave him for dead – did you know he was alive – how long did you not tell me – where is my son – is he alright – what happened to him – where is he – where is he –_

_What happened?_

He couldn’t stop his face from asking them all, any pretence of control gone, leaving only a flat, raw exposure of the anger, the betrayal, the _devastation _that the night had left him. He tilted his head slightly in an unspoken question, the sheer enormity of what he wanted to ask overwhelming his voice and leaving only his lips slightly parted as he felt his head shaking slightly. Hopper’s mask slipped slightly, revealing an understanding sympathy of everything that Paul longed to ask.

“Mr Harrington,” Doctor Owens said with a grin ripped straight from a television commercial. “Would you like to come with us?”

It wasn’t a question. Owens didn’t wait for an answer, turning and walking down a corridor. Hopper watched Paul hesitantly as he looked from Hopper to Owens’ retreating back. Owens eventually paused at a set of double doors, looking back expectantly at Paul and Hopper waiting. Owens gave Paul a warm smile, flicking his head towards the doors. Paul hesitated for another second, glancing at Hopper, who gave him a tiny nod. Paul let out a barely perceptible sigh before following.

They led him through a labyrinth of corridors before they came to a bare, empty conference room. Fluorescent bulbs gave the room a cold, white light that Paul had never liked, making the bare white walls and the hard wooden tables look even more sterile.

Owens pulled out a chair and offered it to Paul with a smile before pulling out a large manila file that Paul hadn’t noticed tucked under his arm. As Paul sat down, Owens took a single document from the file and slid it across the table to Paul before sitting down across the table.

“Mr Harrington, I was hoping we could have a little chat about the events of tonight, but before we go any further, I need you to sign this.”

Paul looked down at the sheet of paper in front of him, reading the first few sentences intently. He realised what it was and glanced up at Owens in alarm.

“This is a non-disclosure agreement,” Paul pointed out.

Owens nodded with a slightly less convincing smile than the ones he’d given earlier. “We just need to know that you understand that this conversation is confidential.”

“You want me to sign away a secret that I don’t even know yet?” Paul felt his anger mounting – he didn’t know what was happening – _what had Steven been involved in?_

“Mr Harrington, if you want a relationship with your son going forward, you’ll sign this document,” Owens said softly, no trace of hostility in his tone, but there didn’t need to be – his words were enough.

“Is that a _threat?_”

“Not at all,” Owens gave a smile that _almost _had Paul believing he was being sincere. “Just a matter of circumstances. We want to help you understand what happened tonight. We want to help you understand where your son has been for the last eight months. But the security of that information is paramount, as I hope you’ll come to understand, and we need you to sign this document to protect it.”

“Paul,” Hopper finally broke his silence, not trying to smile but speaking more gently than Paul had ever heard him. “I get it. I wish I could know how you’re feeling right now, but we want to help you. And more than that, we want to help _Steve. _We want to help him go home. Everything we’re doing here is for him. This is what _you _can do.”

“He’s _here, _you know,” Owens said gently. “You can see him if you like – whether or not you sign this,” he added at Paul’s affronted glare. “But he’s not going to be able to give you any information about what’s happened unless you sign this. He’s signed his own NDA, and I hope you’ll understand why.”

Paul looked from Hopper to Owens. He felt _trapped _– like they were holding Steven hostage, and this was the only way to get him back. A part of him wanted to rip up the document in front of them in a very _American _fashion, a refusal to negotiate with the enemy, to set out on a quest to find the truth on his own, whether or not it killed him. But as soon as he indulged that thought, he felt a bone-weary exhaustion puncture the bubble of self-righteousness. He’d spent months looking into these people, months going further and further down the rabbit hole to come up with no hint of the truth about Steven’s survival, no word about those _things _that had torn apart those people in front of his very eyes. He’d been awake for at least forty-eight hours, hunting down Hopper and Owens and Byers and searching desperately for those children. He barely had any fight left. Hopper and Owens were offering him what he’d wanted for so long, even what hadn’t dared to want – the truth – _Steven _– a second chance to make things _right. _They were offering it to him on a silver platter, with the only caveat being that he needed to keep _one _of those things to himself. There was no choice.

Owens offered out a pen to him. Paul spared him a glare as he took it and scribbled his signature at the bottom of the document. He could feel the tension in the room break. He looked up to see Owens smiling the first genuine smile Paul had seen on his face. Even _Hopper’s _lips turned up into something that might resemble pride.

“This had better be the most enlightening conversation I’ve ever had in my life,” Paul bit out as he pushed the paper across the table towards Owens.

Owens’ smile widened as he opened the folder on the table in front of him, slipping the document towards the back of it.

“Don’t worry, Mr Harrington,” he said. “We’re going to tell you everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah... turns out I'm not quite as heartless as previously stated...
> 
> This was originally going to be one really long chapter but it was a) taking ages and b) already >10000 words and I was like halfway through what I wanted to have for this chapter, so I've split it in two! The other part is by no means finished but I am already >2000 words into it, or to put it another way, half a scene in.
> 
> In other news, I've caved(?) and got a tumblr! Not really sure what I'm going to use it for, I might use it to post one-shots and missing scenes for this fic that I couldn't quite fit into it (as well as reblog some awesome fan art because dayum this fandom has some ace artists!) But yeah, feel free to follow it/drop me a message/educate me on how tumblr works because I have no idea... Anyway, here's a link: https://me-4eva.tumblr.com/


	53. Part 4 Chapter 18: Wonderland

_Monsters._

_Another world._

_Russian invasions._

What felt like an hour of sitting in the painfully uncomfortable chair listening to Doctor Owens explaining a story that felt like something Stephen King had written had left Paul feeling not so much overwhelmed as wrung out. A part of him wanted to laugh bitterly as he had done with Larry about how utterly ludicrous it all was, but as he stared at the picture that Owens had slid across to him – a black-and-white picture of Barbara Holland sat on the edge of the diving board in Paul’s garden with a silhouette that he recognised as one of the _things _that attacked them at the roadblock, he felt a nauseating twist in his gut. After all, Hopper had summed it up quite neatly at the start of the explanation when Paul had scoffed at the first mention of parallel dimensions.

_“If we were making this up, don’t you think we’d have come up with something a little more believable?”_

The wry smile he had given Paul told him that Hopper knew _exactly _how crazy this was. It was unbelievable. If Paul hadn’t seen those monsters for himself, if he hadn’t been handed stills from security footage showing those _things _tearing through Hawkins Laboratory from what he was told was November ’84, he wouldn’t have believed it for a moment.

And Steven had been a part of it from the beginning.

A little girl made special by a controversial experiment had… _superpowers_. She had used said _powers _to discover another world and open a Gate to it and let in a monster. The monster had caught William Byers and killed Barbara Holland in Paul’s back garden. Steven had been drawn into the mess by Nancy Wheeler looking for her best friend and had faced the monster while the government was looking for the girl. The agents responsible for the girl’s _powers _– and Paul could hardly believe that he was even _thinking _that word with any degree of seriousness – had been killed by the monster which had in turn been killed by the girl, and Hopper and Joyce Byers had recovered Will Byers. Hopper had harboured the girl from the government while the government had failed to handle the Gate to the Other World. The Other World had – _infected? Paul didn’t entirely understand what had happened, and by the looks on Hopper and Owens’ faces, neither did they_ – Hawkins as a virus or a parasite had infected Will Byers in a way that had been explained just as vaguely as the town’s infection had been. Paul got the impression that Hopper and Owens didn’t know what they were talking about. The dual infections had dragged Steven back in along with the rest of the children as they finally closed the Gate and cured Will Byers.

And then, in July, the thing that the government had been fighting extremely hard to avoid happened. The Soviets had discovered the Other World – _another thing Paul couldn’t believe he was thinking with a straight face _– and had invaded Hawkins using Starcourt Mall to open up a Gate of their own. The same virus or parasite or _whatever _had infected Will Byers had gone to infect Billy Hargrove and countless others, including the Holloways. Steven and his colleague from Scoops Ahoy had been the ones to discover the Russians and had raised the alarm with the help of a teenager and a ten-year-old that he babysat – Paul wasn’t entirely sure how they’d gotten involved – but the Russians had trapped Steven and his colleague in their base with the Gate. Hopper had gone down to rescue Steven and close the Gate, but in the process of closing the Gate, a fight had broken out before Hopper blew up the technology that was opening the Gate. Those that had been infected had died when the Gate had closed, and Hopper had believed Steven to have died in the explosion.

Steven, however, had escaped the explosion by going through to the Other World. There he had met Billy Hargrove who had been put there by the girl with _superpowers _to stop him dying when the Gate closed because they couldn’t cure him like they had Will – on this occasion, Paul felt like Hopper and Owens knew exactly what they were talking about but maybe they hadn’t explained something to Paul or Paul had missed something because he did not understand for the life of him how closing an otherworldly portal would kill Billy if he was still infected, but by that point, Paul was so overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all that he didn’t even bother to ask them to clear up the finer points. Closing the Gate meant killing anyone infected. It made about as much sense as anything else that had been said in that room.

Billy Hargrove had still been infected with the parasite that was somehow trying to figure out whether or not to infect Steven, only for Steven to get sick from an unrelated illness that had more to do with the fact that the Russians had broken Steven’s ribs in their secret base underneath Starcourt – a sentence of which every part sent Paul’s jaw a little lower, his eyebrows a little higher and his eyes a little wider. It hadn’t been until Steven was about to _die _from these injuries that the parasite had decided to infect Steven – which made about as much sense as a virus that would kill its host if the Gate to the Other World closed – before the Soviets, having opened a Gate in Russia to the Other World showed up and brought Steven and Billy Hargrove to Russia. There, the Soviets had cured them both of their respective ailments before interrogating them about the American government’s dealings with the Other World and put them to work for their operation to invade America and kill the girl with powers – who was now Hopper’s adopted daughter. However, Steven and Hargrove had worked out what was happening and planned their escape which had worked to an extent, breaking their machine and leaving the Soviets trapped in the Other World while they had escaped into Hawkins and had been living in hiding for the last four days. However, it hadn’t worked as well as they’d hoped, as they’d suspected that the Russians would be able to repair their machine. For reasons known only to them, Steven and Hargrove had opted to try and stop the Soviets in secret, remaining in hiding and breaking into Melvald’s and Paul’s own house to get what they needed. That particular plan, however, went out the window when the Soviets targeted Will Byers and his family at a time when Hopper, already suspicious of potential Russian involvement and the potential targeting of the Starcourt survivors, had been taken precautions to keep them close and protected, including bringing in Owens. The Soviets came to the Joyce Byers’ house, but Steven and Hargrove arrived to get them out, leaving the Soviets, who had been impersonating FBI agents, dead in their wake. Hopper and Owens had been _very_ quiet about who_, _exactly, had killed the Soviet soldiers.

With Steven and Billy Hargrove’s information, Hopper and Owens had hatched an operation to try and destroy all Soviet machines that had opened Gates, including the one in Russia and the one in the Other World. Owens went to bring in the United States military and had done what he could when the most carefully laid plans had gone awry. The Soviets had discovered them with those _monsters _that were under their control now – Paul had evidently missed something else there – which sent them all running straight into the roadblock. Paul did not need to relive that _particular _experience. While Paul had taken Powell to the hospital, Steven, Hargrove, Joyce Byers and Hopper had gone _back _to the Other World to get information on the exact location of the Russians’ Gate and blow up the machine in the Other World. This had resulted in Joyce Byers and Hopper being trapped in the Other World, which had prompted the superpowered girl to open up a Gate of her own, letting them come back through. While they were coming back through, _another _monster which was some sort of host or queen or _parent monster_ for the parasite that had infected Will Byers and Billy Hargrove came through the Gate. The superpowered girl had killed it but not before it had somehow _re-infected _Hargrove which had led to Steven setting him on fire to try and cure him, because _apparently _that was the cure, and while the cure had worked, the burns had sent Hargrove into cardiac arrest and he’d been rushed to hospital and was now fighting for his life while Steven was being treated for shock. Paul hadn’t exactly followed that part of the story.

To say that he was left reeling by the explanation was an understatement.

It was insane – _certifiably _insane. Paul had lived on this earth for fifty-four years knowing _exactly_ how it worked. The sun rose in the east every morning and set in the west every night. The earth was round and summer followed spring which followed winter which followed fall which followed summer. Santa Claus wasn’t real and the tooth fairy was usually Linda but had occasionally been him in the earliest days of Steven losing teeth. The monsters under Steven’s bed were the result of a hyperactive imagination fuelled on scary movies and too much sugar. Barbara Holland had died from a chemical asphyxiant and Will Byers had gotten lost in the woods. Any other worlds only became possible in ’69 after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and were thousands of miles away and only accessible by a rocket. These were facts. Undeniable, undisputed facts.

And yet, there was no doubt in Paul’s mind that the story that he had just been told was the truth.

Perhaps it was the absurdity of it all. Perhaps it was his own conspiracy rabbit hole that he’d ventured down that had made him much more ready to believe it. Perhaps it was the fact that he had seen those monsters with his own two eyes. As much as he _didn’t _want to believe it, he _knew _that what Owens and Hopper had just told him was the truth.

Or perhaps he was ready to believe it because this version of the world gave him back the one thing he wanted above anything else.

“I know it’s a lot,” Owens said softly. “I didn’t believe it myself when _I _was first told. But we can prove it-”

“I believe you.”

Paul’s voice sounded hoarse, even to his own ears. He didn’t know _why _he believed them – every sense in his body was screaming at him that this was _wrong_. But he’d known, even before coming into this room, from getting into the car and driving Powell at a guess to the building that he was currently in now, even from _seeing _Steven’s face on the side of that road, that everything he thought he knew was _wrong. _

_This_ made far more sense of the fragments of Steven that he’d stumbled upon in the last eight months – the _babysitting_ now made sense – the desertion of Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins – the closeness to Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler in spite of his devastation after Nancy ended things – his very abrupt aversion to the pool in their garden – even the slipping grades and the fall from grace in basketball.

The room was quiet as he stared down at the picture under his trembling fingers.

“Who was…” Paul muttered, his voice shaking as much as his hands. “Who was the body?”

A moment of hesitation as Hopper and Owens exchanged a look that Paul neither saw nor cared about.

“A Russian soldier,” Owens explained quietly. “We think.”

_So he’d been laying flowers for his son on the body of one of the men responsible for hurting him._

“Was _any _of it real?” Paul’s head snapped up as he spat the words across the room. He could feel a strange heat in his eyes. “Has _anything _you told us in the last eight months been true?”

Hopper looked sadly at the table. “What I told you he said,” he breathed. “His last words – what we_ thought _were his last words – they were real.”

Paul’s breath caught in his throat. Something – some distant cousin of relief – welled up inside him and choked the words lodged in his throat. The words that he had clung to – that Steven had used his final moments – or what he’d thought were his final moments – to say that he’d loved Paul and Linda – hadn’t been a lie – _they, _at least had been true –

Paul hadn’t even _known _how important those words had become to him.

He tore his eyes away from Hopper – he couldn’t even _begin _to process his thoughts on Hopper right now – _he’d left Steven to die in a way far worse than Paul had ever feared – he’d left Steven to suffer for so long at the hands of _Russians _with a lie and an abandonment. He hadn’t checked. He had left Steven for dead and given Paul a body that they knew wasn’t Steven’s and let everyone move on, leaving Steven to suffer for eight months –_

_No. Not something to venture into right now._

His hands shook as he looked over the photograph in front of him. The well of panic was balling up in his stomach, threatening to overwhelm him once more in a fit of nausea. _Monsters – Russians – Steven –_

“Are you alright?” Hopper asked gently.

Paul felt his body tilt forwards as he caught his head in his hands, his elbows propped up on the table as he stared down at the silhouette standing behind Barbara Holland by his pool. _Jesus Christ, Steven had been dealing with this for years…_

“What am I supposed to do?” Paul gasped, defeated. “How do I…”

He trailed off, feeling sick to his stomach. He didn’t know what to ask. _How do I… fix this? Talk to him? Understand him? Help him? Go on with our lives?_

Fortunately, Hopper had some sense of understanding of what he wanted to ask. He offered a tiny fragment of a smile to Paul.

“I think it’s time you sat down and had a conversation with your son,” Hopper said gently.

There was too much truth in his words to ignore, and Owens seemed to take those words as the end of the conversation. He started sweeping back the various documents into the file, plucking the photograph of Paul’s garden from underneath his fingers. Barbara Holland’s face disappeared back into the manila file along with the truth that the world could never know –

“Can I tell my wife any of this?” Paul asked suddenly.

Owens paused in his reordering of the file to give Paul a long, searching look. Paul felt like he was under a microscope as the scrutinising look seemed to pierce through his skin into his very mind.

“Your son has been required to keep this from you since November 1983,” Owens said, keeping his tone neutral. “Unless your wife signs an NDA, I’m afraid that anything you tell her will be treason.”

The word sent a chilling lance through his gut, not just at the implication but at the last time he’d heard that word –

_They’re not charging me with corruption, they’re charging me with treason._

“_Treason?_” Paul echoed. “Like Kline? Was _that _all he did – tell someone the wrong thing?”

The name evidently caught Owens off-guard, because he blinked at Paul in surprise.

“Lawrence Kline worked closely with Soviet agents in the full knowledge that they were using Starcourt Mall to run a covert operation under the United States government’s noses. He was paid handsomely for his betrayal of this country and was responsible for the deaths of twenty-eight Hawkins residents. Your motives to clean up the town were very honourable and remain grounded in the absolute truth.”

Paul couldn’t help but scoff slightly at that. “_The absolute truth?_” he echoed. “From everything you’ve told me here, _nothing _I’ve been told before tonight has been the absolute truth. Did he _really _commit suicide, or did you have him killed? Is he even _dead?_”

Owens gave Paul a long, searching look as he stood up, meeting Paul’s defiant glare with a serious expression that didn’t quite suit him.

“I’m afraid that information is classified,” Owens said calmly in that same neutral tone.

Paul blinked.

“Well, if he’s not dead, where _is _he?”

Paul saw the corner of Owens’ mouth twitching the tiniest amount as he turned towards the door. “I’m afraid that’s classified.”

-:-

Steve had been surprised by just how quick the x-ray itself had been. There had been less than five minutes of standing in front of a large white machine before someone told him that they also wanted to look at his left hand. Steve had blinked in surprise – he’d barely given the misalignment of his little finger any thought, simply becoming used to the stiffness. Still, it was about ten minutes of standing in a room that people kept leaving him alone in before he was taken back to the room where Dustin, Nancy, Jonathan and Will were waiting.

He wasn’t entirely sure quite _how _long ago that was.

It was long enough ago that Steve had been given a plate of something that he couldn’t remember eating, but each mouthful had felt like ash in his mouth. He was now perched on the edge of the bed while Dustin was sitting in a chair by the bedside table, occasionally offering Steve water while Nancy and Jonathan hung back with Will when a soft knock sounded at the door. It was a gentle sound, but the abruptness of it immediately sent Steve’s head jolting up as he flinched at the sound. Before Steve’s imagination could go into overdrive, however, the door opened to reveal the distinct figure of Hopper. Steve relaxed a fraction before realising that Hopper wasn’t alone.

Steve caught sight of his father’s face hovering slightly behind Hopper’s shoulder, eyes wide and face pale. Steve felt something in his shoulders tense up as he locked eyes with his dad.

A largely unnoticed silent battle of wills fought entirely with glares seemed to be occurring between Nancy and Hopper at the sight of Steve’s father. While Will seemed to be most sympathetic to the need to leave, leading Jonathan out of the room, Nancy stubbornly refused, clearly unwilling to leave Steve alone at the hands of his father who had tried to have him arrested mere hours earlier. However, when Dustin left at a small nod from Steve, she finally relented, following him out of the room at a particularly authoritative glare from Hopper. Hopper stood back to let her pass before holding the door open for his dad to walk into the room, pulling the door closed as his dad hovered by the door.

“Hey,” his dad said softly.

Steve looked back at him, his expression unreadable.

“Hey,” Steve eventually croaked, his eyes falling back to his hands that were clasped in his lap.

His father’s eyes fell closed as he forced himself to take a deep breath.

“Can we… can we talk?” his dad asked tentatively.

Steve looked back at him, that same unreadable expression in his eyes before he finally nodded, eyes falling back to his lap. His dad was emboldened to take a few steps into the room, a hand coming to hover on the back of the white plastic chair that Dustin had left behind.

“Can I sit here?”

The request for permission caught Steve off-guard. Steve felt the tension in his shoulders relax a fraction at the gesture as he gave the tiniest nod. He watched his dad sit down out of the corner of his eye, watching how his dad ran a hand over his face, listening to how he seemed to be taking slightly deeper, shakier breaths than normal.

“So – I… I just had a very interesting conversation with Chief Hopper and Doctor Owens,” his dad said in a determinedly controlled manner. He paused, taking a deep breath that exhaled shakily. “That’s… That’s one hell of a secret you’ve been keeping from your mother and me.”

Steve didn’t really know what to say to that. He felt a lump forming in his throat as he looked down at his hands.

“Sorry,” was all Steve could think to say.

Immediately, his dad shook his head. “No,” he breathed. “No, don’t be sorry.”

Steve knew even less what to say to _that. _He’d never seen his dad like this – for someone who prided himself on being measured and calm and _in control, _to see him barely collected, his hands wringing themselves in and out of each other was unnerving. Steve looked up at him, turning his face fully towards his dad for the first time since he’d sat down. His dad fell back into the chair, bringing one of the hands up to run up over his face and into his hair before falling forwards and rubbing his eyes with his other hand.

“Jesus Christ,” his dad breathed to nobody in particular, staring at the floor. “_This _is what you’ve been dealing with. All this time… I’ve been pushing you about your grades and colleges and your future and all the while, you’ve been dealing with _this._”

Steve swallowed again, a small sigh leaving his lips as he looked back down at his hands.

“I’m sorry,” his dad breathed. “_Jesus_, Steven, I’m so sorry. I… I should have known. I should have seen the signs that something was wrong. I should have been _around _to see the signs… You never should have had to deal with this on your own – you never should have had to deal with _any _of this _at all…_ And – and _Starcourt…_”

Steve felt his eyes sting as his father’s face fell forward into his hands, his elbows propped on his knees as he held his head, his voice shaking.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you,” his dad gasped. “I’m so sorry you went through that – I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop you going through that…”

Steve’s eyes fell closed as he felt tears warm in his eyes. “It wasn’t your fault…”

He opened his eyes as his dad snapped his head up to look at him, his eyes shining with tears of his own.

“You’re my _son, _Steven,” he said. “It’s my _job _to protect you. It’s my _job _to look after you. And I…”

He took a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes falling closed for a minute while he visibly collected himself.

“I _failed, _Steven. I failed _you_. And yes, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what you were dealing with, and if I hadn’t seen those _things _tonight, I probably wouldn’t have believed it even if you’d told me, because it’s _crazy… _but _that_ _doesn’t_ _matter. _It doesn’t matter that there’s a thousand and one excuses that I could give, because not _one_ of them changes the fact that I _failed _you. I _lost_ you, and for eight months now, I’ve had to live with that failure as a father. And you’ve suffered the _worst_ consequences of that failure, and I am so, _so _sorry, Steven. More sorry than you’ll ever know.”

Steve felt every word of his father’s in his heart. He felt an urge to say _something, _to _do _something, but he was at a loss as to _what. _He froze as he looked into his father’s eyes, choking on the unformed words in his throat.

“Ever since I lost you,” his dad said, looking at him, eyes still shining with unshed tears, “I’ve been trying to do whatever I could to make things right. And _somehow, _by the grace of God, you’ve come back to me. I have… I have a _second chance._ And I’m going to keep doing whatever I can to make sure that you _never _have to go through _anything _like that ever again.”

Steve finally felt the words in his mouth form something vaguely akin to what he was feeling. The truth was that he felt completely overwhelmed – Steve had _never _seen his dad be _quite _so open about _anything _except his anger. It was _strange_ to hear his dad being quite so _honest_ – to see such a raw display of sadness and regret in Paul Harrington’s eyes. His dad kept things hidden behind a mask – emotion was _messy, _and much like just about everything else in his life, messy things needed to be hidden away. To see them so blatantly on display was, in its own way, humbling.

“Thanks, Dad,” Steve finally muttered.

The use of the title sent his father’s eyes shut. His face fell and Steve felt a twist in his gut.

“I know I won’t always get it right,” his dad muttered, looking at the floor. “_God _knows I didn’t get it right tonight. But I’m sorry. And… I owe you an explanation.”

Steve’s eyes clamped shut as he forced back the tears in his eyes. Steve knew he owed his dad an explanation just as much as his dad owed him one. There was too much truth in the words that had been spat across the chasm of understanding between them on the side of that road before the Demogorgons had burst into his father’s world with just as much blind terror and incomprehension as they had burst into Steve’s. He didn’t think he could explain it – he _knew _he couldn’t explain it _tonight – _not to the extent that his dad required.

“When I saw you…” his dad began tentatively, “I… I didn’t know what to think. I _knew _something was going on – I knew there was something we weren’t being told – and when I saw you standing there, caught out… I thought you were a part of it – whatever _‘it’ _was. To tell you the truth… I thought the government was responsible for destroying Starcourt to keep a secret about our military’s efforts to fight the Soviets. I thought… I thought our government had _killed _you – and Tom Holloway and his family – all as a part of a premeditated murder because you’d stumbled upon – _something. _And tonight, you were talking about doing – _something – _and I thought you were planning on disappearing again. You _clearly _didn’t want to be found – you’d broken into the house instead of facing us – and – _God, _I just wanted to get you somewhere _safe. _Somewhere where you _couldn’t _run off. Somewhere where you could tell me… tell me _why._ And – _God, _I couldn’t even tell you what I was _thinking _– but… it seemed like the best way to get answers. And I – I _know _it wasn’t – I messed up – I didn’t understand – and – and I’m _sorry, _Steven.”

Steve felt a knot in his throat start to ease slightly. He felt utterly at sea – he’d _never _had a conversation like this with his dad, they didn’t _talk _about things – mistakes – feelings – Steve had never known his dad ever to _admit _a mistake, let alone bear his heart and _explain _himself with more apologies in the last few minutes than Steve had ever heard him give in his life. Steve felt a rush of warmth in his chest – Robin had told him that his dad had been devastated by Starcourt, but on some level, Steve hadn’t been able to believe her – to _imagine _what that devastation looked like. He’d been able to believe her even less after they’d left the roadblock, but here he was, _talking _to Steve – not just saying words but _talking _about how he’d felt in his absence – _showing _Steve how he felt now. It was unchartered territory for Steve, but Steve welcomed it. The sheer difference between his dad as he remembered him and the man now sat before him was something Steve hadn’t ever dared to want.

He forced past the lump in his throat to try and finally, _finally _speak.

“I’m sorry, too,” Steve muttered. “I should have come home. But… I was – I was _scared. _I was scared that they’d come after me – that by going home, I’d put you and mom in danger or something… or at least, that’s what I’d tell myself – but there was _also_…”

He trailed off, looking back down at the floor. His heart thundered in his chest as the all-too-familiar wave of anxiety threatened to choke him.

“I didn’t think you’d _understand,_” Steve forced out. “So much happened out there – so much I didn’t think I’d ever be able to _tell_ you – things that would make you – I don’t… I can’t really explain it, but…”

Steve could feel his father’s eyes on him, but he, at least, did not seem to want to fill the silence. He waited quietly for Steve to think – to form the words…

“I’m not the same person as I was when I left,” Steve choked out. “I’ve… I’ve _had _to change – probably wouldn’t have made it back if I hadn’t – and there are parts of me that I want to leave behind – but there are things about me that I know I won’t be able to. I’m not going to be able to be the same again, no matter how much I want to.”

He glanced up at his dad, who was looking at him with a melancholy resignation in his eyes. He nodded once in acceptance.

“I know,” he breathed.

The words twisted Steve’s gut, because he _knew _that his dad had missed the point – he hadn’t even _made _the point yet – he’d made _part _of the point, but there was still something his dad didn’t know – something that he _needed _his dad to know – something he didn’t _want _to hide –

“It goes _beyond _that, Dad,” Steve ploughed on, unable to stop the tears from slipping down his face. “It’s not just things I’ve had to be that I don’t _want _to be anymore – there’s part of me that I _don’t_ want to leave behind – that I want to be _now – _that I want to keep now that this is all over – and I don’t want to hide it from you, I don’t want to be ashamed of it because in all the _shit _that has happened, it’s the _one _good thing that’s come out of this whole mess – and if you can’t – if you can’t accept it, then…”

Steve felt his voice getting thicker as he closed his eyes, tears falling thick and fast down his face. He knew what he was going to say might break his dad’s heart, but he couldn’t lie – not now.

“If you can’t accept it, then I don’t _want _to go home,” Steve breathed. “I don’t want to go back to my life if this can’t be a part of it. I didn’t think it _would _be able to be a part of it – that’s _part _of the reason I didn’t come home straight away, but – I can’t just pick up where I left off – not without you knowing the truth.”

Steve’s heart was thundering in his chest. He was _terrified _– his dad had never been particularly understanding about this sort of thing, but he knew that, if his dad was going to reject him for it, he wouldn’t be able to take it if he had felt a taste of home – in the long run, it would be easier to tell him now – now that his dad seemed to be _understanding _for the first time in his life – but the words caught in his throat. His dad was looking at him strangely, the same melancholy in his eyes now mingled with confusion. Steve swallowed down his fear, knowing that if he didn’t say it _now, _he probably never would.

“I’m in love with Billy Hargrove,” Steve breathed.

He cast a sidelong look at his father, taking in every movement of his face. His eyes widened at the words as he looked at Steve. He fell back slightly against the back of the chair. Steve heard him take a deep breath through his mouth as his eyes came to focus on the middle distance between his face and his lap. He brought a hand up to his mouth and took another deep breath through his nose.

“Okay,” his dad said at last. “Okay…”

Steve watched his dad closely, trying to ignore the twist in his gut as his dad just _wouldn’t look at him. _He watched his dad lean his elbows on his knees, a far more familiar attempt at hitching up some form of emotional mask onto his face. The mask was failing to stay in place but succeeding just enough that Steve couldn’t quite glimpse what emotion his father was hiding. His father was breathing deeply, a frown settling on his face.

“So… you’re – you’re _gay _now?”

The words were carefully devoid of judgement as his father finally looked at him. His eyes were wide, pleading for – _something – _an explanation, a confirmation, a denial, Steve didn’t know what. Steve gave a small shrug of the shoulders before turning away.

“I don’t know,” Steve muttered, feeling the tears sting at his eyes. “I mean… I loved Nancy. I _know _I loved Nancy. But… I love Billy too. He was… he was the _only _good thing about that place – he was what got me through it. Without him, I probably wouldn’t have made it out – I wouldn’t have made it home – I – I _know _I’d be dead if it hadn’t been for him… He’s the _only _reason I made it home, and I – I can’t lose him, Dad…”

His eyes fell shut and sobs shook his body as he couldn’t stave off the nightmarish image of Billy, lying on that cold floor, surrounded by rubble, the skin on his chest burnt away as he lay there, still, too still, frozen – _no pulse under Steve’s fingers as he pressed them against his wrist – his chest too still – the horrifying realisation that Steve had succeeded with Billy where he had failed months ago with himself –_

Steve felt the mattress dip next to him and a hand settled on his back. The contact snapped Steve back to the present – he stiffened as his eyes opened, and he stifled his sobs with a choked-off noise as he tried to remember the last time his dad had ever _comforted _him like this.

Evidently, his father was equally unfamiliar with this territory, and Steve finally got a glimpse of the lost, nervous, _terrified_ expression his father had been trying to hide under his default mask of neutrality when he startled at the noise that Steve made, the hand pulling back a fraction.

“Sorry – is that…?” he asked Steve.

Steve blinked, a hand coming up to his face as he rubbed his eyes. “No… it’s – uh-”

His dad looked nervous as he gently replaced his hand back between Steve’s shoulder blades, only relaxing when Steve’s posture eased into the touch.

“Okay,” Steve heard his dad say softly. “So… you think you love him.”

Steve stiffened at the words – he could almost _hear _the words that his dad was about to say –

“Are you – are you _sure?_” his father asked, frowning slightly. “Are you sure it’s not – not just-”

“It’s not a _phase _or anything like that,” Steve snapped.

“That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

To his credit, Steve had to acknowledge that his father kept his tone very measured, a voice of determined calm, the hand moving off his back and coming to rest in his lap.

“I just think…” his dad continued, keeping his tone calm and neutral. “You’ve been on your own for a very long time. It’s easy to form strong attachments that won’t necessarily feel the same now that you’re home.”

Steve felt his shoulders drop a fraction, tears forming in his eyes as he stiffened slightly –

“Then again, what the hell do _I _know?” his dad sighed. He gave a slight shrug as he looked down at the floor.

“Ever since you were born,” his dad muttered, “all I’ve ever wanted was the best for you. I worked hard to provide the best life for you and your mother. I found a house in a nice town with a good school for you. I pushed you at school to try and get good grades so that you’d get into a good college and have the best future possible. I worked so hard building up the firm so that we’d be well off, so that you could get the best possible life. And I… I ended up working so hard that I lost sight of what was _really _important. I was spending so much time working that I missed out on _you. _Your grades started slipping, you missed your college applications, and so I pushed you to get a job to learn some responsibility and get some life experience. I… I thought it was the right thing for you.

“And then… when we got the news… _Jesus, _Steven, I can’t even _begin _to describe what it was like. Losing you was the hardest thing I’ve _ever_ had to go through. And _now… _Now I realise just how _little _I knew about you. I mean – _Jesus _– I didn’t know about the _world_ you lived in – I didn’t know about the _monsters_ – or the fact that you were one of the best babysitters Hawkins has ever seen, _apparently_ – I… I don’t _know _what’s best for you anymore, Steven. _God, _I don’t even know who you _are_. And I haven’t known for a _really _long time.”

The words weren’t spat out maliciously – they were a sigh of defeat as Steve watched his dad rub his eyes. His head fell forwards and his voice grew thicker as he finally lifted his head, tears rolling down his face as his eyes stayed closed.

“But… but _whoever _you are…” his dad continued. “If there’s one thing I _do _know… it’s that I can’t lose you again. I love you, Steven. No matter what.”

He met Steve’s eyes, his own eyes red as he let the tears roll down his face. Steve felt a rush of warmth in his stomach spread to his chest as he repressed a shuddering sob at the most open, honest acceptance he’d ever received from his dad.

“I love you too, Dad.”

Steve felt his dad’s arm wrap around his shoulder as he fell sideways against his dad’s chest. He felt the tears gradually stop, leaning into his father’s embrace as he felt his dad rest his cheek on the top of his head. He felt his father’s chest shaking with huffed-out exhales that might, in another life, have been either sobs or laughs, Steve couldn’t tell which. He just sat there, letting his breathing even out into something more natural as he let himself feel safe, his dad’s arms wrapped around him, _holding _him against his blood-stained shirt.

“Dad?” he mumbled.

“Mm?”

“Can we go home?”

Steve almost felt a sense of disappointment as one of the arms around him pulled itself away and his dad adjusted his head to smile down at him.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “We can go home.”

-:-

It turned out that _going home _was not quite as simple as Paul had hoped.

Steven was apparently going to need medication, and Owens wanted to talk him through a special diet that he needed to be on, but also needed to check on some other patients, because it turned out that Powell and Hargrove had not been the only casualties of the night, and, for some inexplicable reason, finding a chocolate pudding had taken priority over Steven. Paul’s initial ire at this had melted away as he’d caught sight of Steven’s fond, knowing smile, but Paul decided that he didn’t want to know about the relative importance of cheap, pre-packaged dessert.

Still, there were worse ways to wait than sat on the edge of a bed with an arm around his hitherto-believed-to-be-dead son. Steven’s head was resting on his shoulder, eyes closed in something that might have looked like sleep except for the shaky breaths that shuddered through his body.

Eventually, a soft knock on the door sounded and Doctor Owens came in with an enormous smile on his face. He was holding a small white paper bag and a manila folder.

“How are we doing in here?” he asked softly as Steven opened his eyes. Clearly not expecting more than just a shrug, he pulled the chair that Paul had vacated earlier and sat down opposite the pair.

“So,” Owens said warmly. “I’ve got your initial round of medication here, there are some sleeping pills for the next week. Take one tablet before bed every night for the next seven days, and I’ll book you an appointment here for a review at some point in the next week. I’ve included one extra tablet for today, but otherwise, it’s really important that you only take these at night to get your body back onto a normal sleep schedule.”

Steven gave a small nod, taking the bag that Owens offered him.

“There’s also some vitamins in there, too. They go with the meals, just to make sure you’re getting everything your body needs while you put some weight back on. Speaking of which…”

Owens extracted a sheet of paper from the manila folder with a flourish while Steven opened the bag to peer inside with a frown on his face. While Owens launched into an explanation about the meal plan he showed them, explaining about the various merits of each meal and the importance of the timing, where to get the nutrition bars that constituted snacks and how it was probably going to feel like a lot but that it was really important that he followed it to the letter, that the weights and measurements of the ingredients were there for a reason, not to eat less than what was prescribed but also not to eat more, because the point of this was to avoid something called ‘refeeding syndrome’ which could cause heart and brain problems, Steven picked at the various boxes and bottles in the bag, glancing at the labels as the frown got deeper.

“Steven,” Paul eventually said as Owens wrapped up his explanation, trying to keep his voice neutral. “Did you hear any of what the doctor just said?”

Steven nodded, not looking up at anyone, looking, if possible, even more tired than Paul felt.

“Three meals a day with snacks in between,” Steven said softly, still looking into his lap. “Take the supplements. Eat what it says on the sheet when the sheet says.”

Paul didn’t entirely know quite how to respond to that, but Owens smiled and handed the sheet to Steven, who took it and folded it up into four and put it in the paper bag.

“You’ve got it,” Owens grinned at him. “Do you have any questions?”

Steven shook his head slightly, still looking vacantly into the paper bag. Paul, however, looked pointedly at the door and Owens, getting the message, stood up and walked out.

“I’ll just be a second,” Paul breathed at Steven, who nodded, still staring into the bag with glazed eyes. Paul got the impression that he wasn’t really looking at the bag held loosely in his hands, but he needed to ask Owens something while he had the doctor’s attention.

He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him as quietly as possible before looking down at Owens.

“What’s up?” Owens asked, a wry smile on his face.

“What do I… what do I tell his mother?” Paul asked, trying to keep as much of the hostility out of his voice. In truth, he wanted to scream – to yell – to grab Owens and shake him until _some _answer came out that appeased him – to let out the overwhelming storm of anger, heartbreak and something that he couldn’t name that was pressing on the inside of his ribcage – but he couldn’t lose it. He couldn’t _afford _to lose it.

Owens gave him a knowing, understanding look. “For now? Tell her he was found with the kids.”

“That’s not an answer-”

“It’s the only answer I can give you, I’m afraid,” Owens shrugged, looking regretful. “We need to work out a cover story, but I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. There’s a lot that needs to be done right now, and as I’m sure you understand, I’m prioritising saving the lives of the two people currently in critical condition. We probably won’t have a chance to work out what to tell the world until tomorrow morning, so I suggest you use this time to go home and get some sleep. You look almost as tired as _he _does.”

Owens gestured to the closed door with a tilt of the head. Paul sighed, running a hand over his face at the woeful inadequacy of the answer.

“I want to be a part of it,” Paul bit out.

“I’m sorry?”

“Working out what to tell people,” Paul explained. “I want to be a part of it. You’ve – you’ve _made _me a part of this – you didn’t exactly give me much choice – but I want to have a say in what, _exactly, _we tell people about how my son is back from the dead. If you’re going to make us _lie _about this, I want to have a say in what that lie is going to be.”

A strange light came into Owens’ eyes as he looked at Paul.

“You’d really be willing to _help_ us?” he asked.

“I’d be willing to help _my son_,” Paul corrected coldly. “On this occasion, the two happen to be one and the same.”

Owens shrugged slightly and gave Paul a warm smile. “It’ll be good to have your help, regardless. Particularly given that the media is already all over this.”

Paul didn’t miss the subtle bite in Owens’ remark. He turned his head, annoyed, before breathing out a soft huff. He caught sight of Hopper, hovering some way down the hall, watching them with a strange look on his face. As they made eye contact, Paul gave a slight nod of the head, and Hopper walked over to them.

“Chief Hopper,” Paul said curtly, keeping his voice low.

Hopper nodded by way of greeting. “How’s Steve?”

“He wants to go home,” Paul explained shortly. “We’re just trying to work out how to make that happen.”

Hopper frowned at him. “Is your car not…?”

He trailed off as Paul hit him with his most withering look, a single raised eyebrow betraying his annoyance.

“We’re trying to work out what best to tell the world,” Paul bit out. “Since _apparently_, the truth is off the table.”

All energy drained from Hopper’s face at Paul’s words. “Can’t it _wait?_ At least until morning?”

“And what, Chief Hopper, do _you _think I should tell my wife when I come home with our dead son?”

Paul felt a certain satisfaction as Hopper was rendered mute by the question. He raised an eyebrow before turning back to Owens.

“Fortunately, _‘forthcoming’ _is not a word my wife traditionally associates with me,” he said coldly. “I can probably come up with _something _until morning, but we need to talk about this, and we need to talk about this _soon. _I’ll set up a meeting at my office at ten, I want to see you both there.”

Hopper looked resigned to his fate, but Owens opened his mouth to protest. Paul silenced him with a cold look, using the height advantage he rarely needed to its fullest extent.

“You _want _my help, correct?” Paul kept his tone icy. “That was your grand plan in reading me in, wasn’t it? You read me in, I help you keep this quiet and use my position for your conspiracy, correct?”

The silence that followed confirmed his suspicions until Hopper sighed.

“You’re incredibly cynical, Paul,” Hopper muttered.

Paul ignored him, turning back to Owens. “Well, if you want my help, you’ll be there.”

Owens’ eyebrows shot up as he looked over at Hopper, a slightly incredulous smile on his face, but Hopper sighed and shook his head despairingly.

“Can we say eleven?” he asked Paul half-heartedly.

The look on his face told Paul that Hopper already knew the answer. “Ten o’clock-”

“What about ten thirty?” Owens suggested, signature smile hitched back into place. “Nice and in the middle.”

The briefest flash of desire to argue, to insist on the earlier time crossed his mind in a moment of sheer pettiness, but with everything that had happened over the course of the night, his moment of pettiness was quashed by a desire to get back to Steven.

“Fine,” he bit out through gritted teeth. “Ten thirty. My office. Oh, and Hopper?”

Hopper looked at him with exhausted resignation in his eyes and an expression that very clearly said _‘what now?’_

“Don’t be late.”

Hopper opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but simply let out a long, low exhale with a shake of the head before turning and heading back towards the room that Paul could only assume housed Joyce Byers and the rest of the missing children Paul had spent the better part of the last thirty hours trying to track down. Owens shot Paul a winning smile as Hopper left, a decidedly forced edge to it.

“Great,” Owens said. “I’ll go get those discharge forms.”

He turned away, the white coat vanishing down the corridor as Paul watched him go before gently opening the door and going back to Steven.

Steven was still staring at his hands which clutched loosely at the paper bag. He gave no sign that he’d noticed Paul’s re-entry until he blinked as the door shut.

“Hey,” Paul said as gently as he could manage – _and good Lord, this did not come naturally to him. _“The doctor’s just gone to get the discharge papers and then we can go home. Do you want to – uh… say goodbye to the others or anything?”

Steven moved his head upwards slightly, but his eyes didn’t leave the floor exactly, just found a new spot to focus on. He blinked before giving a tiny nod and pushed himself to his feet, the paper bag still clutched in his fingers.

“Hey,” Paul breathed. “Give me that – I’ll look after it.”

The little of Steven’s face that Paul could see looked confused and more than a little lost, but he didn’t put up a fight as Paul took the bag from him. Paul didn’t take his eyes off Steven, who looked like a strong breeze would knock him over. Paul hesitated, uncertain of whether it would help before gently placing a hand on Steven’s shoulder as he guided him out of the room.

The fact that Steven didn’t even seem to notice left an uncomfortable feeling in Paul’s stomach.

They crossed the white hallway before he was spotted from the open door by Joyce Byers, who gave Steven a warm smile and pointedly ignored Paul’s existence. Steven seemed to notice her like he hadn’t noticed Paul, and Paul couldn’t help but feel a twinge of something like jealousy – or quite possibly regret – that _she _could get through to him when he couldn’t. However, the sight of Steven’s face breaking into an exhausted but genuine smile in return pushed Paul’s feelings aside in relief that at least someone _could _get through to Steven as he stepped out from under Paul’s hand and hovered in the doorway. Paul hung back for a moment, watching Steven from afar, trying to remind himself that even though Paul may not know his own feelings towards Hopper and Joyce Byers right at this moment – even though he refused to confront those feelings right now _because he couldn’t even begin to think about how they’d made the decision to kill Steven and even though he’d survived they’d still weighed his life in the balance and deemed it less – _Steven seemed to have forgiven them for his part, and these people, for all their faults, were still his friends and somehow, despite everything, that bond remained intact, and they seemed to be what Steven needed right now.

“Hey, sweetie,” Joyce said softly. “Are you going home?”

Steven nodded weakly, his eyes drifting closed as he did so. He peered into the room – from Paul’s vantage point, he could see Steven peering at a figure in the far corner of the room, hidden by curtains while the curly-haired boy that had left the hospital room so that Steven and Paul could talk – the same boy that Paul vaguely recognised from helping clear out Steven’s bedroom – came over, a nervous smile on his face.

“You okay?” the boy asked, glancing pointedly at Paul before looking back at Steven.

“Yeah…” Steven breathed. “Yeah, Dustin, we’re… we’re good.”

The boy – _Dustin – _gave Steven a tight smile that Steven tried to return.

“How’s – how’s Billy?” Steven asked, his voice shaking slightly.

Dustin’s smile faltered. “He’s – uh – he’s in surgery,” he explained hesitantly. “They’re going to try and sort out – sort out as much as they can…”

Steven visibly blanched. His breathing became shallow, more erratic. Paul started towards him as Steven began to look around wildly –

“I should – maybe I should stay…” Steven muttered.

Paul felt his stomach clench – he instantly found words in his mouth ready to disabuse him of that notion – but something held him back – none of them felt _right _– they felt too insistent – too much like his desperate plea for Steven to get in the car – like his demand that Hawkins PD arrest him –

Joyce, however, knew _exactly _what to say.

“Oh, _sweetie,_” she breathed, pulling him into a tight hug. Steven leaned into her embrace, his body shaking with barely repressed sobs that choked him as she started stroking the back of his head in a gesture more tactile and comforting than anything Paul had _ever _been able to manage.

“You’ve done _so much _for him,” she said gently. “So much for _all _of us. But there’s nothing else you can do for him. The doctors will do what they can, and you’ve done everything you can for him. He’s going to be in surgery for a while. And Steve…”

She pulled back slightly, still cradling his face as she looked at him. Paul was surprised to see tears sparkling in her eyes.

“Your _mom _is at home. She’s waiting for you. And she’s _missed _you. I _know _she’s missed you. And she… she needs you to come home. She needs to see you. And _you _need to see _her. _There’s nothing more you can do for him here. And right now, you need to go _home._”

She gave Steven a watery smile. Paul could have kissed her.

Steven nodded silently in agreement, his face still screwed up as tears continued to roll down over his cheeks. He looked altogether defeated, with no energy left to fight for what he wanted, torn between so many different longings and obligations that he was coming apart at the seams. He looked lost, his big brown eyes so very like his mother’s shining with tears as he opened them to look at Joyce and Dustin. Dustin gave him a shaky smile as Steven turned back to Paul. He was shaking like a leaf under the hand that Paul put on his shoulder.

Paul glanced at Joyce, who smiled warmly at him and offered the tiniest upturn of the corner of his lips in return. They fell back down to a grim line as he looked at Hopper watching him. He didn’t give a smile – he didn’t think he _would _ever be able to smile at Hopper – but gave him a terse nod. As much as Paul wished he weren’t, he and Hopper were on the same side now.

Owens was waiting out in the hall as they stepped back outside, watching them with the quintessential manila folder in hand as well as a clipboard. As Steven stepped out into the hall, equipped as it was with plastic chairs, he approached them, giving Paul a chance to deposit Steven into one of the chairs. Owens took one look at Steven before evidently deciding that the conversation would go much quicker if he simply talked to Paul instead, handing the clipboard to Paul as well as the pen.

“We’re discharging him into your care,” Owens explained quietly. “Make sure there’s someone with him in the house at all times – at least for the next twenty-four hours. He’s had something to eat so when he gets home, let him have a shower and then he goes to bed. You were there when I explained the medication to him, but let him have one tablet when he goes to bed now, and then another one when he goes to bed in the evening. Make sure he drinks lots of water when he _is _awake, and after he wakes up, make sure he has whatever meals are still left on the schedule for day one of his meal plan. Tomorrow, when things are a little more normal and it’s a little more realistic for him to start following a normal schedule, just start again at day one. Any questions?”

Paul shook his head as he flicked through the discharge form, finding the point that required his signature. He scribbled it down with a quick glance over what he was signing before he sat down next to Steven, putting the clipboard on Steven’s lap.

“Steven,” he muttered. “You just need to sign here.”

Steven looked blankly at the pen offered out to him before he scribbled a scratchy iteration of his name with shaking hands on the line that Paul was pointing to without even reading what, exactly, he was signing. Paul grimaced slightly.

“Right,” Owens said with a disgusting attempt at cheeriness that was only redeemable in the amount of force required to create it. “If you drop those off with the receptionist on the way out, you should be set. Mr Harrington, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Paul shot Owens a silent glare as he guided Steven to his feet, but Steven gave no sign that he’d even heard Owens’ voice, let alone registered the words. Owens gave a slightly apologetic shrug before leaving them to it, heading into the room that housed the others.

The receptionist managed the first smile Paul had seen on her face as she took the clipboard from Paul, but the smile was entirely directed at Steven. It was warm, sympathetic, and completely unacknowledged as Steven continued to stare at his empty hands, now devoid of the paper bag of medicine or anyone to hold on to, his fingers loosely tangling themselves in each other. Paul hesitated for a moment before turning to the receptionist.

“If there are any updates, either with William Hargrove or Calvin Powell’s conditions, could you call me?”

“Mr Harrington, we can’t disclose any information to non-family members without their permission-”

“I’m asking as the _Mayor,_” Paul said firmly. “And as the person overseeing the official inquiry.”

She looked at him with a certain amount of exasperation, seeing right through his blatant attempt at posturing.

She eventually huffed, grabbing a notepad and a pen and putting it on the counter between them. “Write down your home and work numbers and the hours that you’re usually there. I’m making no promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Paul twisted his face into an altogether unconvincing smile as he scribbled down two phone numbers onto the notepad and handed them to her. He caught a glimpse of her writing the word _‘Mayor’ _at the bottom of the paper. He pretended not to notice the speech marks around the word as he turned away.

Paul couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was steering Steven out of the hospital and towards the car. Out of habit rather than anything else, he ended up opening the passenger side door for Steven before catching sight of the blanket draped over the seat and freezing.

“You – you might be more comfortable in the back…”

But Steven gave no sign that he’d even heard Paul, let alone remembered that only hours earlier he’d thrown a dying man onto the seat, stepping into the car with numb detachment, with no visible reaction or awareness that the thick woollen blanket draped over the seat was the only barrier between him and blood-stained leather. Paul had neither the energy, the inclination or the ability to press the issue, taking a deep breath and trying to squash down the pit of worry at the state of his son as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

As he drove out of the gate, Paul’s heart broke at the broken shell of Steven that he was taking home, but even broken, his heart felt twice its natural size at the thought that there was anything of Steven to take home at all.

-:-

The road rolling out beneath the car passed by in the barest pulses of light as the headlights hit the white lane dividers before they vanished under the car. There was something almost rhythmic about it, grounding, as all Steve saw was the regular pulse of the road markings, all he heard was the soft purr of the engine. It was a nice change from the harsh white light of the hospital, the constant murmured voices around him, the scrutinising gazes by people who claimed to know best.

Instead, it was just his dad, driving the car while Steve leant on the window.

He turned his head slightly to glance at the clock on the dashboard, his eyebrows raising at the time on display.

_05:02._

Steve didn’t remember ever being this tired.

Even in Russia, when he’d forced himself to keep going, when his mind was in freefall after they’d taken Billy, or after he’d been handed a gun and told to shoot _that_ _kid who bore a more striking resemblance to Billy in his memories now than Steve had ever remembered, _even after they’d escaped and crawled into that storm cellar, he didn’t remember ever feeling this utterly, utterly _exhausted. _He supposed Dustin (or possibly Nancy) would have an explanation about adrenaline and life-or-death situations making him feel better, but he didn’t much care. He watched as the time on the clock ticked over into _05:03_, looking at it vacantly, watching the colon between the hours and the minutes flashing in time with the seconds – _anything to avoid having to think at all._

“Steven?”

He paused for a moment before looking at his dad, who had at last broken the silence that had settled over the car since they had started driving.

“Your – uh… your mother doesn’t know,” his dad explained quietly, looking back at the road. “They wouldn’t let me call her from the hospital.”

Steve blinked before replacing his cheek against the cool glass of the window, staring out of the windshield at the lane dividers passing beneath them, flashing like the hospital lights above his head.

_Flash… flash… flash…_

“When we get in…” his dad continued. “Let me go find her and wake her up. I’ll tell her… I’ll tell her _something._”

Steve felt an unfamiliar but not unwelcome rush of gratitude at his father’s words – and what his father _didn’t _say – _I’ll tell her something so you don’t have to. _He was relieved; he didn’t think he was up to spinning a lie big enough to cover everything.

The roads began to get more familiar as they got closer to town. They encountered their first traffic light as they turned onto Main Street and Steve felt a rush of warm familiarity as they drove past the dark shop fronts he’d grown up with. He felt a twist of guilt in his gut as they drove past Melvald’s, with a board covering the broken door.

The feeling of familiarity turned into melancholic nostalgia as they turned onto the street. Steve caught sight of his house in the distance, approaching rapidly as his breath hitched in his throat. His dad noticed the change in his breathing, giving Steve a sad smile as he pulled into the driveway.

“You okay?” his dad asked.

Steve didn’t really know how to answer that.

He clambered awkwardly out of the car. Every step towards the door felt heavier and heavier as he followed his dad towards the door – _the last time he’d been in his house, he’d been sneaking around – no plans to go back – avoiding every reminder of sentimentality – his room had been stripped bare – he didn’t know if he could do this –_

His dad unlocked the door and Steve followed him in, feeling like he was in a dream. Nothing felt real as he stepped into the hallway, his dad pulling off his coat and kicking off his shoes. It was dark – none of the lights were on – just the empty silhouette of the very familiar sight of _home._

“I’ll just be a second,” his dad breathed. He glanced down at the state of his shirt, still absolutely covered in Powell’s blood, pulling his jacket tighter around his body experimentally to try to cover it up –

_“Paul?”_

The sound of the disembodied voice calling from the top floor sent Steve’s head snapping up to the top of the stairs. He forgot how to breathe at the voice – his eyes stung for what felt like the thousandth time that night.

_Mom._

“Paul, is that you?” his mom called, still out of sight. Steve heard a door close, and soft footsteps padded down the corridor at the top of the landing towards them.

“Uh – yeah, Linda, it’s – it’s me,” his dad called back, barely able to keep a note of panic out of his voice. “Hang on, I’ll just be a second-”

“Paul, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick-”

She broke off as she appeared at the top of the stairs, taking in the two figures down below her. Steve froze, all air leaving his body. He didn’t start babbling like he had done with his dad, he didn’t start filling the air with apologies – he couldn’t do it, they would have no meaning from him right now – he couldn’t explain – not tonight – instead he just stood there, taking in his mom’s appearance, her dyed blonde hair letting her darker roots show as she stood there wrapped in a pink satin nightgown, staring down at him, shock on her white face.

“Mom?” he finally broke the silence with little more than a whimper.

“Steven?” she gasped, her voice barely a breath on the wind. “Steven, is that you?”

He couldn’t find words as everything he’d felt all evening, all the emotions he’d fought so hard to keep in check for the last few days started welling up into his chest. He felt like he might explode at any moment, his chest too small to keep him together.

“Yeah, mom,” he gave a tiny nod as his voice grew thick. “Yeah, it’s me.”

Her breaths were shaking her chest as she looked down at him, her lips parted a fraction as he saw her process his appearance – that she _was _seeing him – that it _was _really him – that he was really here, standing in their hallway looking up at her –

“Oh, _Steven!_”

She all but flew down the stairs as Steve was finally catalysed into movement, the band of emotion in his chest keeping him together breaking at last, flying open into her arms as she pulled him against her chest on the bottom step. Every single emotion that he hadn’t been able to deal with over the last eight months since Starcourt suddenly unleashed itself, pouring out of him as he clutched at his mom, an unrepressed sob pouring out of him as every barely repressed tear poured out of him. He felt the wail at the back of his throat as he finally dropped all pretence of togetherness, as he finally let himself scream and sob into his mom’s chest as she held him against her, letting himself fall into her arms as his legs gave way completely.

He allowed himself to break down as his mom awkwardly sank down to the ground, Steve clutching at her desperately as he shook, nothing left in his body as he felt so utterly, utterly spent. He couldn’t hold up his own head, sprawled on the floor, the last energy in his body in his hands as he clutched at his mom, all control given up as he let out every tear unshed, every drop of pain, agony, despair, _heartbreak _as he screamed against his mom’s chest. She held his head against her, breathing what little comfort she could offer into the top of his head as his dad sank down beside them, a hand on the small of Steve’s back and another around his mom.

“It’s okay,” his mom breathed. “Whatever happened, it’s over now. You’re safe now. I’m here. You’re home. It’s over. Just let it out.”

So he did. On the floor of his hallway, wrapped up in his parents’ arms, he finally started to let himself believe that it was over. Eight months, almost to the hour, since Hopper had knocked on the door to tell Paul and Linda that he was gone, Steve was finally _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was this chapter shameless gratuitous angst and tearful reunions? Yes. Do I feel even remotely guilty? No.
> 
> So I know this was a very Steve/Paul-heavy chapter, but OH MY GOD I'M SUCH A SUCKER FOR DYSFUNCTIONAL FATHER/SON RELATIONSHIPS GETTING REPAIRED AND I WANTED TO WRITE ONE EVEN THOUGH THERE'S NO CHARACTER IN CANON AND THIS WAS ME SHAMELESSLY INDULGING IN MY DREAM PLOTLINES and frankly if you're surprised at that, might I refer you to THE REST OF THIS FIC as an example of me shamelessly indulging in my dream plotlines. I really struggled with the coming out scene, not going to lie. I wanted to have something that was accepting and heartwarming, because it was kind of the big conclusion to Paul's arc, but I also wanted it to feel realistic and also feel reflective of the attitudes in the 80s, so that Paul didn't feel overly liberal or modern (because let's be honest, he's pretty conservative and right wing.) But I'm actually okay with how it turned out - this unique set of circumstances weren't necessarily the only circumstances that Steve would have come out to his dad and his dad would have just been like "okay, that's okay, I love you," but that response was the only real response that he could have given in this particular set of circumstances and still been true to his character. So yay, character development! Paul knows he's not right about everything anymore!
> 
> Thank you for putting up with my shameless indulging, and more on the rest of the characters next chapter...


	54. Part 4 Chapter 19: The World Turned Upside Down

Steve barely had the strength to breathe as he finally let out all the pain he’d kept inside himself for so long. He didn’t know how long he stayed on the floor, just happy to be _held. _It could have been a minute, it could have been days for all Steve knew. He lost all sense of time as he just clutched at his mom, feeling her stroking what was left of his hair while his dad just kept a hand on his back. When his eyes started to feel dried out, he still stayed there, choking out the sobs still left in his body. When he couldn’t do that anymore, he still stayed there, gasping desperate breaths, his eyes closed as he rested his head on his mom’s chest, uncaring about the awkward, uncomfortable position he was sprawled in. He and physical discomfort were old friends. He didn’t think he ever wanted to move from the spot, to give up the warmth that spread from his chest and the security that his _mom _was here. He didn’t care how childish it was – his mom had always been able to make the worst monsters stay under his bed where they belonged when he was a child – being _here, _being at home with _her _holding him made him feel safe in a way he hadn’t felt in far, _far _too long. He didn’t want to give it up – not when the tears were spent and the sobs dried up and the gasps stopped coming and he was just _lying _there in the comfort of her arms as she continued to breathe platitudes into his head with shaky breaths.

Every remaining ounce of energy drained from him as his mom held him together. His breathing was a little easier to control, evening out into deep, albeit shaky, breaths. His mom eventually stopped stroking his hair, a hand just resting there in the messy locks, holding his head securely against his chest.

“Steven?” she eventually breathed. “Do you want to go to bed?”

_Wasn’t that an appealing thought?_ The brief taste of comfort of the hospital bed, as undermined as it was by the harsh fluorescent lights and constant scrutiny, had been far too welcome. At his mom’s words, he suddenly felt every muscle in his body aching, a dull pain brought back into clarity. As comfortable and as _safe _as he felt with his mom on the floor of the hallway, he could feel his body already protesting. He gave a small nod against his mom’s chest and she stroked a hand through his hair again, pressing a kiss against his skull.

“I – I’ll need to make your bed up – we cleared out your room – we thought – oh, _Steven _– we thought you were-”

“Linda,” his dad breathed softly from somewhere above Steve’s head. His mom broke off, realising that she was holding Steve much tighter than she had been a moment ago and easing her grip slightly.

“Well – while I’m making your bed – maybe you could have a shower? Or a bath?”

Steve still didn’t have the energy to move, and by the fact that his mom’s arms were still wrapped around him, she had no inclination to let him go. He gave a soft hum, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to – or even if he was agreeing at all.

“Steven?” his dad muttered. “Why don’t we go and find you some pyjamas?”

It was said gently, but it was very much _not_ a question. With more effort than he’d thought possible, his muscles screamed in protest as his dad helped him up off the floor. He started up the stairs, his dad following behind him with a guiding hand on his shoulder just like he’d done at the hospital. He could barely see as far as his own feet, and he altogether missed the bewildered, questioning look his mom shot at his dad – he _would _have missed the quiet exchange between them if it hadn’t been for his dad pausing on the stairs.

_“Linda…”_

_“Paul, what-”_

_“I was wrong. About… about everything.”_

Steve couldn’t quite bring himself to look back at his mom, standing with a hopeless expression at the bottom of the stairs as his dad guided him up to the top of the stairs and steered him down the hall towards his parents’ bedroom.

Steve stood by the door, his right hand crossed over his body to hold his left elbow while his dad opened up the enormous closet that made up one wall of the room. Steve stared at the bed, his breath hitching in his throat –

_He’d been on a twisted version on that bed with Billy mostly under the control of the Mind Flayer, choking on his own blood – Billy doing what little he could to nurse him back to health or towards his inevitable death –_

“Steven?”

His head snapped up towards his father, who was holding out a towel and a set of blue pyjamas, folded and pressed neatly into a little square. They were a silk-satin blend that his mom had bought for his dad – one of three or four sets that were rotated that had become his dad’s quintessential nightwear that could only be found in an expensive luxury store in Indianapolis that his dad insisted on going to because they were now the only type of pyjamas that he could tolerate. There was a set of clean underwear folded neatly on top.

“I know it’s not the same as having your own, but I’ll head out when the shops open and pick up some essentials,” his dad explained. “I daresay your mother will enjoy dragging you to a mall at some point when you’re feeling a bit better, but until then, feel free to raid my closet for anything you want.”

Steve took the towel, pyjamas and underwear with a small nod.

“Thanks, Dad,” he muttered hoarsely.

He wandered out of the room, tearing his eyes from the bed as he walked down the hallway to the bathroom. He turned the door handle –

“Steven,” his dad called softly, his voice full of thinly veiled concern. “Leave the door unlocked, just in… just in case.”

Steve gave a small nod before finally stepping into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

He fell back against the door, taking in the familiar sights of his bathroom. The white walls and the highly impractical carpet were still exactly as he remembered them. The bathtub still had the same shower curtains around them. The plant on the windowsill was still there, still alive – Steve reasoned that since his parents had moved back home to the point where they actually _lived _in the house, his mom was watering the plant rather than telling Steve to _‘remember to water it every couple of days while we’re away, darling’._ It was probably doing far better under her care than it ever had under his.

He let out a deep breath and pushed himself off the door, setting the towel and the pyjamas down on the toilet lid before freezing as he caught sight of himself in front of a mirror.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his own reflection. If he hadn’t known it was him staring back at him from the mirror, he probably wouldn’t have recognised himself. Illuminated only by the pale moonlight that was filtering through the window, his face almost looked like a skull. His eyes were sunken, huge dark bags underneath them. His face was thin, gaunt, his cheeks hollow as the skin clung to his cheekbones, stretching down to his jaw. His hair was messy, short locks clinging together with dirt, all different lengths, the longest a couple of inches, the shortest less than one. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips were cracked, and his face was covered in a myriad of fine white scars. Some were short – a little white line on the bridge of his nose, a dot on his temple, while others were long – the longest was a thick white line that ran across his cheekbone down to his cupid’s bow, a souvenir from something Steve couldn’t even remember. He took a deep breath and finally peeled off his shirt.

The body the large mirror above the sink reflected back at him took what little breath was in his body. He suddenly had a new appreciation for the level of professionalism that Owens had had when examining him. Unlike his face, some of the scars covering his torso were dark. Bruising mottled his skin from the numerous fights of the evening, red welts darkening into purple. His skin was stretched over what muscles were present, but given the state of his arms, that was far more a scathing indictment of the state of his body than a compliment. His arms looked almost half their usual thickness. His skin was stretched over his ribcage, each one glaringly pronounced before his stomach caved in beneath it. Steve took a deep, shuddering breath before turning around and looking at his back over his shoulder.

His back was much the same as the front, with each individual disc of his spine looking more pronounced than was natural. His shoulder blades were too prominent, but Steve couldn’t take his eyes off the mark branded into his right shoulder. He reached an arm around, lightly touching the raised scar tissue in the shape of a sickle and a hammer. The skin was discoloured, looking slightly yellower than the surrounding pale skin, the scarring uneven. He felt himself sag with defeat as he swallowed down the sob that threatened to overwhelm him. He didn’t want his parents to see this. He didn’t want _anyone _to see this.

He finally pushed himself over to the light switch, flicking it on and letting the warm yellow light bathe the room. He didn’t look much better under the yellow light, but at least he looked less like a ghost in the shadows.

He didn’t bother fiddling with the settings on the shower as he turned it on, letting the water spray down into the tub. He kicked off his shoes and peeled off his pants and the ancient standard-issue underwear that he never wanted to see again. He didn’t want to see _any _of those clothes again. He bundled the clothes up in a moment of rebellion and shoved them into the tiny trashcan under the sink. When they didn’t quite fit, he tried to shove them down, push them further into the small plastic container on top of used cardboard toilet rolls.

He turned back to the shower before finally climbing into the tub. He flinched as the first splash of water hit him, surprised at the _heat _that hit him. He stretched out a hand tentatively into the spray, letting the warmth touch his fingers, letting his hand and then his arm get used to the warmth before stepping underneath it.

The warm water that poured down into his hair and over his shoulders before running down the length of his body made his muscles relax – he hadn’t even realised he’d tensed up – _had he become so used to standing under cold water that he instinctively braced himself for it? _The water that ran down into the tub was tinged brown as the water carved white lines across his skin. He felt the water cover his hair, soaking into his scalp for the first time since… _they’d escaped? No, that wasn’t it… Russia? Russia. He hadn’t had a shower since being blasted with a hose in Russia, in the loosest sense of the word ‘shower’ that constituted. _His eyes drifted shut as he just _stood _there, letting the warmth soak into his body, the heat of the water so far removed from the icy cold that had gripped his fear and wrapped him up in it that for the first time in months, he felt the water wash over his face without thinking of how it felt in his mouth, how it had been used to choke him, to drown him tied onto that board.

He opened his eyes and glanced around at the pile of plastic bottles on the shelf beside the tub, proudly displaying words like _‘shampoo’ _and _‘conditioner’ _like they were normal things. There was a bar of soap in a little ceramic bowl. He picked it up, a strange sense of unfamiliar familiarity as he remembered how slippery it was with wet hands. He rubbed it experimentally over his arm, watching as the suds bubbled up, tinged with the same dirt that ran into the tub. The water washed it away almost immediately, letting the suds drain down the plughole as he rubbed the soap back and forth over his body, seeing his skin get paler, _cleaner, _as he kept going until it was practically as white as the walls, before it started to get red – it started to sting –

The soap slipped from his fingers and hit the tub. The last of the suds drained as the soap lay a little out of the spray, slowly sliding towards him until it touched his toe, scarred by the intense fire he’d burnt it with all those months ago. He bent down and picked it up, carefully replacing it in the ceramic dish before his hands drifted sideways to the familiar label at the back of the assortment of bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

_Faberge Organics._

He smiled as he poured out a generous measure into his hand, taking in the familiar smell, the familiar sight of the liquid. Even in his parents’ quest to clear out his room in what was no doubt an attempt at catharsis, they hadn’t removed his haircare products from the bathroom. Whether it was because they hadn’t noticed his old shampoo and conditioner at the back of the array of bottles or whether it was a tiny attempt at sentimentality or whether they hadn’t deemed it important enough, Steve felt his chest seem to expand at the tiny fragment of his old self as he rubbed the shampoo into his hair, feeling it pull away the dirt. The conditioner felt equally good, and as he washed it away, feeling it sting his eyes slightly, he ran his hand up through his hair, relishing the smooth, _clean _hair under his fingers for the first time in eight months, and _smiled._

He stepped out of the shower and pulled out the towel underneath the pyjamas, smiling at the feel of the soft, fluffy fabric making him dry on his own terms. It felt so _soft _under his cheek as he rubbed it gently over his face, across his chest and down the length of his body. He rubbed at his hair, leaving it fluffy and standing up at all different angles, letting himself smile at his reflection in the mirror. The muscles in his cheeks bunched up under his eyes, and for a brief moment, his face looked a fraction less skull-like.

The silk-satin pyjamas felt like liquid under his hands as he slipped them over his arms and legs. The small drawstring around the waistband of the pants felt loose but not uncomfortable as Steve tied it around his waist, letting the pants hang from his hips without slipping. He folded the towel up and put it on the radiator before heading back to his room.

His mom and dad were hovering in the doorway, immersed in a conversation as he approached.

“…Linda, _please, _I know you’ve got questions, but I really need to get some sleep before heading into the office-”

“I just want to _understand, _Paul – _Steven!_”

His mom broke into a smile that didn’t quite banish the sadness from her eyes as she caught sight of him. She swept past his dad, taking him by the arm and walking him into his room.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked, still with that too-wide smile spread across her face.

Steve gave a tiny nod that only seemed to make him look more pitiful. His dad was watching him with no trace of a smile on his face, just a neutral mask that gave way to an absolutely heartbroken expression when he thought Steve wasn’t looking.

“Steven, I’m going to – uh – I’m going to get some sleep for a couple of hours, but then I’ve got to head into the office to sort some things out. I’ll try and be back early, maybe mid-afternoon, but-”

“Okay,” Steve muttered, not really sure what else to say to that. His dad broke off at the tiny noise that left his mouth, the mask slipping slightly into the heartbroken expression he was trying to hide.

“I’ve made up your bed,” his mom said brightly, her tone, much like her smile, not quite touching the sadness she was hiding. “Your father said you had some medication?”

She looked over to his dad with expectant eyes, spurring him into action as he finally seemed to remember the small white bag in his hand. He handed it awkwardly to Steve.

“So remember – one now-”

“Thanks, Dad,” Steve again cut him off as he walked over to the bed. He couldn’t see anything beyond it – couldn’t even think about the emptiness of the rest of the room, his eyes just focused on the bed in the centre that looked _too _inviting, the big, plump pillows by the headboard, the thick, heavy comforter in a white cover…

He climbed into bed, sitting up for the briefest moment as he extracted the sleeping medication and took out one small blue pill. His mom materialised next to him with a glass of water and that same sad, too-wide smile on her face. Steve took the water, looking from the glass to the pill, hesitating –

“What’s wrong, darling?”

The smile had slipped from his mom’s face at last, leaving her to look just as heartbroken as his dad. Steve felt his chest tighten as the anxiety, the _fear _gripped him – _what if he woke up and Billy was gone? What was he going to face in his dreams? What if _this_ was_ _a dream? What if none of this was real – what if he woke up back in that hospital with someone telling him that Billy had died on the floor of the Lab? What if he woke up back in Russia? Back in the Upside Down? _A thousand nightmarish scenarios swirled through his head, each one so poignant because they _had _been real –

“Darling, you need to-”

“Will you stay with me?” he choked out, his voice little more than a whisper as he looked at his mom.

Her expression faltered as she looked surprised by the request – Steve braced himself for some excuse – some lecture about how he was an adult –

“Of course,” his mom smiled warmly, reaching up to stroke his hair.

The simple gesture was calming, the ball of anxiety shrinking slightly – just enough for him to swallow it down and take the pill, knocking it back with a swig of water. His mom reached over, taking the glass and setting it down on the floor as she perched on the edge of the bed as Steve finally lay down. She pulled the comforter up, tucking it under his chin like she used to do when he was little before bending down and kissing his forehead and gently stroking his hair.

Under the soothing motions of his mom’s hand, Steve finally closed his eyes and let himself drift off.

-:-

It was Nancy who had finally mentioned going home to the others.

Steve’s departure with his father and their baffling but relieving reconciliation had found Nancy remembering the charges under which they were planning on arresting everyone. Nancy remembered that she had her own parents who were probably worried sick about her – if the charges were to be believed, then her parents thought that she and Mike had been kidnapped.

The logistical nightmare of what, exactly, to do about this – how to get them home – was daunting. Hopper and Joyce both separately offered to drive them all home, but Nancy had pointed out that showing up without a word, with _barely _an explanation about where they’d been, in the car of one of the people who’d reportedly kidnapped them, was far more likely to do more harm than good.

That said, there wasn’t a good explanation that _anyone _could give about where they’d all been.

Owens had come up with the solution when he’d finally surfaced twenty minutes later with a chocolate pudding that he set down on El’s bedside table. He suggested calling their parents and having them pick them up from the hospital and that someone would explain to them that they had been through something traumatic and that someone would be in touch with them in due course to explain once they had a clearer picture. Nancy had been sceptical about this plan, to say the least, but she had managed to bite her tongue. At least until Hopper had offered to make the calls. Then she had pointed out, arguably slightly more vehemently than necessary, exactly how dodgy it would sound to have Hopper call up her parents and explain to them that their children that he was suspected of kidnapping were at a military medical facility and that they should come and pick them up but also not to ask questions about what had happened to them.

So instead, _she_ had offered to call her parents, which had brought her to where she was currently standing. Nancy was now facing a phone, dialling the first half of her number over and over again, wondering what, _exactly, _she could tell them until the dial tone started wailing and she needed to start over again.

She finally forced herself to finish dialling her number, letting the phone ring exactly one and a half times –

_“Hello?”_

Nancy swallowed at the terrified sound of her mom’s voice on the other end of the line. She’d clearly been waiting right by the phone for anything to ring.

“Mom? It’s – it’s Nancy-”

_“Nancy! Oh my God – oh my God – _TED! _– Are you alright? Are you hurt? Is Mike with you? Are you _safe?_”_

The stream of questions that poured down the phone came so fast, an alarming quickfire that left the barest amount of room for the tiny noises that she struggled to get out.

“Yeah – yeah, mom, we’re – we’re safe,” she finally managed. “Mike’s with me, so is everyone else-”

_“Where are you, Nancy? Chief Hopper’s not with you, is he?”_

Nancy closed her eyes as the questions just kept coming. She couldn’t handle this – _not now – _but this was why she volunteered –

“Yeah, mom, we’re – we’re safe – we’re with Chief Hopper and Mrs Byers – but it’s not what you think,” she cut over the strangled noise her mom made on the other end of the line. “I can’t… I can’t really explain it, but… we’re fine. Everyone’s okay. We’re… we’re at a hospital – not Hawkins Memorial, there was another one closer – but it’s mostly a precaution–”

_“Nancy, please, you need to tell us where you are – I can come and get you – get you somewhere safe – they _never _should have taken you-”_

“Mom, they didn’t… they didn’t _take _us anywhere,” Nancy didn’t know how to get her mom away from her new-found anger at Hopper and Mrs Byers – with the barest explanation that they were alright but in a hospital for things that she could never tell them. She looked up at the ceiling, the fluorescent lights that gave the room a stark white glow burning colourful lines into her vision as she stared at it – between trying to give an explanation she was not capable of giving, the exhaustion she felt from the night’s events, the tightening in her chest as she forced her mind away from certain aspects of the night – of the things she’d _done –_ the constant worry about the people she couldn’t help – El, Mike, Billy, Steve – _Steve, _who had been alive all this time, who had been left by _everyone _to go through a nightmare with Billy – a nightmare that had drawn them closer together than Nancy had ever thought possible – a closeness that had been explained in the barest overheard remark not meant for her – _the man I love – _her mind wiped blank as she tried to wrap her head around it all – around how she was meant to keep going when all she wanted to do was break down, scream into her knees – to make as much noise as she needed to without an audience –

_“Nancy? Nancy, are you there?”_

Her mom’s worry snapped her out of her head and back into the present as she suddenly realised she had her eyes closed.

“Yeah, mom,” she muttered. “Yeah, I’m still here…”

_“Nancy, what’s going on?”_

Her mom sounded on the verge of losing control, her voice so drained of everything but worry as Nancy just breathed down the phone.

_“Where have you been? Where did you all go? _Why?_”_

The desperate final question – the simple request for an explanation – _why _did she leave? – Why did she put her mom and dad through that? Why did they _all _put their parents through that? Why would Joyce Byers and Chief Jim Hopper _let _them do such a thing?

“We left because…” Nancy’s voice was tiny, the only difference between it and a breath on the wind was the tiny squeak that gripped at the edge of the words as her vocal cords tightened. “Because _Steve’s alive. _He and Billy – they came _back, _Mom…”

Her mother was at last silent on the other end of the phone. Nancy could hear the thousand questions whirring away in her mom’s mind – the questions that she couldn’t answer, the questions she’d been dreading.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she finally allowed her voice to waver, to crack, to _break_. She finally allowed the tears that she had fought back in an effort to be strong for her friends, for Steve – for Mike – to roll down her face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you – I’m sorry I left – I’m sorry I scared you, but-”

_“Oh, Nancy…”_

Her voice changed with a rush of sympathy the likes of which Nancy had only heard when she’d revealed the horrors she’d been dealing with – horrors that her mom would never understand – horrors that even with the limited knowledge that she had of what had happened, she could still not fully empathise with. It was the voice she’d used when Nancy had told her about Barb’s disappearance, the voice from when the news had finally broken about Barb’s death, the voice when she’d arrived home the morning after Starcourt and the dam had burst and all she could do was just sob uncontrollably on the couch between sympathetic but bewildered parents while Mike had taken Holly upstairs in a rare moment of sensitivity.

_“Do his parents know?”_

Nancy hiccoughed slightly. “Yeah… yeah, his dad took him home a little while ago. He was…”

She trailed off as the words escaped her. Steve was…_ what? What could she possibly say that would explain adequately why she had left? Why they had _all _left?_

Fortunately, her mom wasn’t pushing her.

_“Okay,” _she said softly. _“Okay. Are you coming home? Do you need me to come and get you?”_

Nancy hiccoughed slightly. “Yeah, mom… Could you – could you come and get us?”

-:-

Hopper let Owens handle explaining what little could be explained to a hysterical Karen Wheeler when she arrived. Although they were several rooms removed from the reception area where Karen Wheeler had been screaming bloody murder about him, Hopper could still hear the echoes of the slightly shrill voice as he and Joyce had stayed with El, Robin and Max while Owens had gone to talk to her. The look on Owens’ face as he’d come back was shellshocked, to say the least.

The next few hours passed in a blur as he’d hunched over the edge of El’s bed, trying to let himself drift off where he could, but occasionally getting disturbed by someone coming in to check on the three patients in the room. He’d glanced a few times at the clock above the door before finally dragging himself to his feet a little after nine thirty.

_After all, he wouldn’t want to be late for Paul Harrington…_

He had been sitting in the altogether silent waiting area outside Harrington’s office for about ten minutes when Owens finally deigned to join him. The clock on the wall slowly ticked past ten thirty, the minute hand creeping closer towards the number seven, and then the eight, while Hopper sat in the albeit far more comfortable chair outside the Mayor’s office in Town Hall, a slightly bewildered Owens sitting next to him. Harrington’s secretary kept glaring at him as he watched the minute hand creep closer and closer to the nine.

Hopper tried for a smile. She glared harder.

“Does he _always _do this?” Owens finally breathed.

Hopper fought the urge to roll his eyes, instead humming out an affirmation.

“You get used to it.”

Owens’ eyes widened slightly as he looked away dubiously, but any further complaints were stifled by the sound of footsteps echoing down the corridor before the man himself rounded the corner and breezed past them, clutching a briefcase and, bizarrely, a shopping bag.

“Field all my calls,” Paul Harrington said to the secretary without so much as a greeting to any of them. “I’m not to be disturbed for the duration of this meeting.”

Without even bothering to look at her nodding, he strode over to the office and opened the door. Hopper understood the invitation as Harrington didn’t immediately slam it behind him, letting Hopper catch him while Owens didn’t bother trying to hide his incredulous, bewildered smile.

_Only thirteen minutes late. They really _must _be friends now._

“Gentlemen,” Harrington gestured to the chair in front of the desk before waving over at another chair in the corner while he settled himself behind the desk. Hopper got the chair and brought it towards the table, offering a small smile to Harrington only for him to completely ignore it.

“How’s Steve?” Hopper asked, trying to sound as sincere as he felt.

“As well as can be expected,” Harrington said shortly, not looking up as he shuffled papers around on his desk. “He was sleeping when I left.”

Hopper felt gratified as Owens tried for one of his own trademark smiles. “That’s good. He needs it.”

Harrington still didn’t look up immediately as he gave a noncommittal hum. “How are Mr Hargrove and Officer Powell?”

Owens’s smile slipped immediately, his face looking haggard in less than a second as Hopper was forced to remember that Owens had been working pretty much non-stop since they’d arrived. He briefly wondered what this meeting had dragged Owens away from.

“Powell’s out of surgery,” Owens said, passing a hand over his face. “We managed to stabilise him for now, but it’s still very touch and go. Mr Hargrove was still in surgery when I left.”

Harrington nodded, briefly adjusting a stack of papers. “Call me when he’s out.”

Owens nodded. “When there’s any news, I’ll have my secretary let you know. I know how much your son cares about him.”

Harrington’s head snapped up and his eyes flashed dangerously, some trace of a fight crossing his mind, but he turned back down towards the table, briefly adjusting the stapler.

“His mother is expecting answers.”

The jarring shift from pleasantries to business was not wholly unexpected, but did slightly take the air out of the room as Owens shifted slightly in his seat, the silence stretching between them as Harrington finally felt that his desk was suitably in order and looked up, clasping his hands together on the table as he looked at them expectantly.

Owens was the first to stir. “Well, gentlemen, I don’t know quite how we’re going to talk our way out of _this _one. Between you both, you’ve managed to create _quite _the spectacle.”

Hopper did his best to look contrite while Harrington raised a supremely unamused eyebrow.

“That said,” Owens sighed as he leant back in his chair, “I _have_ been thinking. Jim, we could say you’ve been running a covert undercover operation to find the phantoms who have been breaking into properties around Hawkins. You were contacted by the FBI and found out they were targeting Starcourt survivors, only for them to break into Joyce Byers’ house while you were there with the FBI liaisons-”

Harrington, clearly itching for an opportunity to tell Owens that he was an idiot, cut in at this point with an unimpressed glare.

“That won’t work,” he said shortly. “The FBI knows the IDs that Powell and Callahan found at the property were fakes. They relayed the information to us.”

Owens looked slightly taken aback by this. “Well – uh – that complicates matters – we could say that the FBI impersonators were the burglars-”

“And _where, _exactly, in your magical fantasy, do Steven and Mr Hargrove fit in?” Harrington asked, his voice icier than Hopper had ever heard it. Hopper privately felt extremely glad that for once, it wasn’t _him _on the receiving end, while his heart simultaneously went out to Owens. Though, to be fair to Harrington, Hopper had been wondering _exactly_ the same thing.

“Well, if you’d let me _get _to that part-”

“Skip ahead,” Harrington’s eyes glittered dangerously. “I don’t mind spoilers.”

Owens glanced at Hopper incredulously, his trademark smile looking more disbelieving by the second, the incredulous edge taking on the slightest hint of outrage.

“Well…” Owens began, making the grievous error of pausing to take stock.

“Or, and here’s a _revolutionary _idea,” Harrington cut over whatever Owens was about to say, “we could tell the public the _truth._”

A ringing silence fell as the words seemed to take a moment to seep into Hopper’s brain. He glanced sideways at Owens, no trace of a smile on his face as he looked at Harrington, a dumbstruck look of horror leaving him open-mouthed and wide-eyed. By that simple look, Hopper could tell that Owens was thinking exactly what he was thinking.

“Hang on, let me get this straight,” Hopper finally stirred. “You want to tell the _public… _that your son has been stuck in a secret dimension with a bunch of _mind-controlling monsters?_”

Harrington blinked, frowning slightly. “No, of course not – not the truth about _that._ I was more thinking the truth about the attempted Soviet attack in Hawkins and Steven’s subsequent imprisonment in their hands.”

The silence stretched as Owens fought to school his expression into something a little more dignified.

“You _do _realise we can’t do that, Mr Harrington…”

“Why not?”

“_Why not-_” Owens spluttered, any attempt at dignity going out the window. “Did you _miss _the part about Soviet invasions? It’ll create panic-”

“_More _panic than two people who were supposedly dead coming back to life? More panic than a group of children going missing with the Chief of Police? More panic than two federal agents and twenty-odd police officers getting killed overnight in mysterious circumstances? Doctor Owens, _panic _is inevitable. The reason why things got so out of hand was because everyone was _so _concerned about causing panic that the cover story crumbled around our ears and left us with more questions than answers.”

Hopper raised an eyebrow, feeling a twist in his gut. “Do you know what kind of scrutiny you’ll expose Steve to if we tell the world that he was abducted by the Soviets?”

“Steven is going to be exposed to a horrendous level of scrutiny no matter _what _we tell the world,” Harrington huffed. “It’s a small town, Hopper, people will _talk. _They will ask him questions regardless of what we tell them. He’s been missing for eight months and just about _anything _we tell the world will sound equally unbelievable. At least this way he doesn’t have to lie to his mother about _everything._”

“Okay, okay, let’s say _for a moment _that we entertain the idea of telling the world the truth,” Owens cut across them. “How _much _of the truth do we tell? We leave out the Gate and the alternate dimension, what do we tell them?”

“That the Soviets were responsible for the destruction of Starcourt,” Harrington answered without missing a beat. Hopper couldn’t help but feel slightly caught off-guard – Harrington had _clearly _thought about this. “They abducted Steven and Mr Hargrove and held them captive-”

“Why?” Hopper asked.

Harrington blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Why would they take Steve and Billy?” Hopper asked flatly. “We’re talking about a pool lifeguard and a mall worker. Not exactly prime targets for Soviet kidnapping operations.”

Harrington paused for a moment, thinking.

“They saw something they shouldn’t have,” Harrington answered. “It gave them enough warning to get the survivors out.”

Hopper took a moment to think about this. It wasn’t _quite _as stupid as he’d previously thought. It certainly would explain away more of the story than Owens’ story, which, Hopper had to confess, was not one of his better cover stories. Harrington’s efficient reworking of the truth to suit the narrative forced Hopper to remember what Harrington had done for at least thirty years before becoming the Mayor – and made him question why they hadn’t brought a lawyer on board earlier.

“Okay,” Hopper hummed. “And tonight?”

“The Soviets went after Byers and her family,” Owens picked up the story. “We took the rest of the survivors into hiding as a precaution but due to the secrecy of the operation, we couldn’t risk reading the rest of the police force in or else we’d risk exposing the kids to the Soviets. We then tracked down the Soviet operation to Hawkins Laboratory and put an end to it tonight and found Mr Hargrove and your son still alive.”

Harrington gave Owens a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

“It _could _also explain what happened at the roadblock,” Harrington continued. “The Soviets attacked everyone and killed most of the police force-”

“Which could also explain why we didn’t go through the official police channels to protect the kids,” Hopper finally cut in. “Right, I’ve got you.”

“Exactly,” Harrington nodded at Hopper, the smile dropping slightly but certainly giving him a far more friendly look than anything he’d given before. “The police, though I am _loath _to admit it, were not enough to handle the threat, so you went through military channels instead.”

Hopper couldn’t help but grudgingly respect Harrington’s idea. It _worked_. Certainly, it worked better than anything else he could think of.

“Okay, just one question,” Hopper said. “Why would the Soviets attack Hawkins in the first place?”

He was met with identical looks from both Harrington and Owens, patronising looks that made him feel remarkably small, given that he was the tallest person in the room.

“Hawkins Laboratory,” Owens explained. “They were trying to recreate some of the old experiments from there.”

“Which is the truth,” Harrington pointed out.

Owens nodded in concession. “We just don’t tell them what those experiments _are._”

“Besides, the public already _knows,_” Harrington said. “At least, to a certain extent.”

It was Harrington’s turn to be on the receiving end of identical looks, but on this occasion, the looks were confused, questioning looks.

“The _‘chemical asphyxiant’ _that killed Barbara Holland,” Harrington shortly, the patronising look he’d just given Hopper still in place.

Hopper blinked, his eyebrows rising, but he didn’t quite have the energy to criticise.

“Okay…” Owens gave a soft laugh, the incredulous smile back in place. “Okay, so we’re _really_ going to do this, then? We’re _actually _going to tell the world the _truth?_”

Harrington gave him a humourless, unkind smile. “Does it feel _strange _to be _honest?_”

Owens tried for a trademark smile. “Strange? Yes. _Unpleasant?_ No.”

Harrington’s smile slipped a fraction.

“I must say, though, the powers that be will be _thrilled,_” Owens grinned. “A Soviet attack on US soil is more than enough diplomatic justification for _our_ attack on the Soviet base in Kamchatka. Those people that negotiate those things with the Soviets can try to organise some sort of ceasefire, given that the Gate’s been destroyed.”

“It’s almost as though telling the _truth _is generally beneficial to all parties,” Harrington said dryly.

“In certain circumstances,” Owens conceded.

“In _most _circumstances.”

Owens’ smile dropped slightly, giving Harrington a polite look that gave nothing below the surface away.

“Perhaps,” Owens conceded. “However, as much as I would love to continue debating the merits of selective honesty, things are really quite busy at the moment. Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”

Hopper cleared his throat, turning towards Harrington uncomfortably. “Uh – we’re going to need to debrief Steve at some point.”

Harrington raised an eyebrow, straightening up defensively in his chair as a look of mild surprise crossed his face. “I thought you already had.”

“Not exactly,” Owens explained. “He and Mr Hargrove told us what happened to a certain extent, but we need to formally debrief him. There was a lot that he didn’t tell us that we need to know.”

Harrington looked taken aback slightly. “Well, he’s asleep right now-”

“Oh – not _today, _of course,” Owens managed a reassuring smile. “But soon. It’s important, yes, and it needs to happen _soon,_ but – well, there was a reason we didn’t do it last night.”

Hopper could see in his mind’s eye all too vividly the image of Steve hunched over on the bed, barely able to keep his own head up – he’d seen Steve wheeled into the ambulance outside the Lab, his whole body shaking on the gurney – by the look on Harrington’s face, he knew the reason as well as anyone.

“If you tell him to call me at some point in the next day or so, we can set it up,” Hopper said, trying for something vaguely akin to tact. “I can be there for it-”

“Should _I _be there?” Harrington asked sharply.

Hopper turned sideways, looking at the wall, his face twisting slightly as Owens looked slightly uncomfortable.

“Honestly, you’d have to ask him,” Hopper said. “But be prepared for him to say no. I think a big part of the reason why he held back what he held back was because he _didn’t _want people to know about what happened-”

“Won’t _knowing _what happened to him help me _be _there for him?” Harrington looked mildly affronted.

Hopper sighed – he could tell what Harrington was getting at, but it was one of Hopper’s own struggles. He remembered the weeks, the _months _after he’d gotten back from Vietnam where Diane had been pressing him to talk about what happened – what it was that made him wake up in a cold sweat every other night – but he hadn’t _wanted _to tell her. He hadn’t wanted her to _know. _

“Yes and no,” Hopper shrugged. “He may not want you to look at him too differently. He may want you to help him get back as much of his old self as possible. He may want you there, he may find it easier to talk about it if you’re _not_, he may not want to talk about what happened twice or he may find that a formal debriefing is not the best environment for you to learn what happened to him. Either way, it’s really important now that _he _feels in control of what the people in his life know about what happened.”

Harrington visibly deflated, backing down as he turned away from Hopper.

“You’re right,” Harrington muttered. “I understand. Well, gentlemen, if that’s all, I have rather a busy day ahead. I’ll call a press conference at some point this afternoon.”

“Were there any other survivors of the roadblock?” Hopper blurted out. He hadn’t meant to ask it – he hadn’t had a chance to check himself, he wasn’t expecting an answer.

Still, Harrington surprised him, looking up at him with something that might have been sympathy.

“Yes,” Harrington said softly. “One – Philip Callahan. I need to talk to him at some point before announcing this to the world-”

“Don’t worry about that,” Hopper said. He couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief at the sound of the name – Callahan, for all his faults, deserved better than being summoned to Harrington’s office with no explanation. Hopper couldn’t imagine how he must be feeling after the events of the previous night.

“I should – I should be the one to talk to him,” Hopper finally explained both Harrington and Owens looked at him questioningly.

Owens offered another trademark smile as Harrington kept his expression neutral, but something – _perhaps sympathy again_ – shone in his eyes as he finally gave a single nod.

“Very well,” Harrington said softly. “Before you go, could you both leave a phone number with my secretary and I’ll let you know when the press conference is set up.”

Owens nodded before standing up and holding the door open for Hopper. Hopper hesitated for another moment, wondering if there was something he should say to Harrington, but couldn’t quite work out what, if anything, to say. A simple apology wasn’t quite right – he didn’t even know what he’d be apologising for – but the swirl of thoughts in his head were refusing to clear up into a sentence. He finally followed Owens to the door, letting it fall shut behind Owens the doctor stood in the doorway, frowning at the ground.

“Is he…” Owens breathed as he looked up at Hopper. “Is he _always _that difficult?”

Hopper couldn’t help grinning as a snort of laughter escaped him. “Only with us, Doc.”

-:-

Phil Callahan wasn’t quite sure what time it was as he stretched out on his couch. He hadn’t slept – _god _knew sleep wasn’t coming to him – but his whole body was in agony as he curled up on the couch, a television remote in one hand and a bottle of bourbon in the other. He’d already spilled a third of it over the blanket he’d found. The television was on full volume – it had started as a way to drown out any noise he would make – to fill the silence so he wasn’t listening for any tiny, insignificant noise that could be one of those… those _things – what the hell were those things?_

It had then morphed into a distraction as he realised he was watching a documentary on a German band that apparently did some quite exciting things with technology that had been mildly interesting insofar as it took his mind off those _monsters _for long enough for him to pretend that they _didn’t exist _before the programme finished just in time for the news to come on at six o’clock in the morning.

The news featuring _nothing _about demon monster _things _straight out of hell with faces that opened up to reveal rows and rows of teeth – that couldn’t be right – it should be headline news – a street full of dead cops – that should be _more _than enough –

_“…There have been no new developments in the missing persons case in Hawkins after a second night of searching…”_

No new – _no new developments? _That couldn’t be right _at all. _They’d found the missing persons – they’d found _the Chief – _and then a street full of cops had been torn to shreds – he’d barely escaped with his life – the Mayor’s dead son had been there, too – had helped the Mayor escape with a half-dead Powell – _dead people came back to life – monsters existed – the Chief was involved in all this somehow – what in the name of God was going on?_

So he spent the next few hours with the news on, flicking between channel after channel to try and make sure he was getting as much coverage as possible. He’d even got his radio out of his bathroom and brought it into the living room next to the couch and tuned it to the local news station, once again changing between different stations to try and get maximum coverage.

He’d come across exactly nothing when a knock on the door startled him, sending what little was still in the bourbon bottle sideways across his lap. His head snapped towards the door as he froze, willing whoever it was to think he wasn’t home –

_“…We’re expecting unusually high temperatures for early February across southern Indiana…”_

Okay, so maybe pretending that he wasn’t home would work better if he didn’t have the television at full volume. Still, they couldn’t _see _him – he’d drawn the curtains in a childish hope that the limited impairment of visibility would be enough. _If I can’t see you, you can’t see me._

The knock on the door sounded again as Callahan forced himself to look at this rationally.

_Monsters don’t knock on doors._

_He didn’t know that._

_He could be fairly certain that monsters didn’t understand basic societal etiquette._

He grabbed his gun anyway.

He crept towards the door slowly, keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible as he dodged the creaky floorboard. He held his gun ready beside him as his hand finally landed on the door handle – he twisted it – raised his gun –

And pointed the gun in his recently former boss’ face.

Hopper jumped back, both hands raised with wide eyes.

“_Easy – _easy Phil – easy with that!”

Callahan made no move to lower the gun. He would have been an idiot if he had been. The Chief had no right to be here – _no right to have made it out alive when so many had died –_

Hopper put a hand on the top of the gun, gently guiding it down to Callahan’s side.

“Phil – uh – I was hoping we could – I was hoping we could talk.”

Callahan looked at Hopper, his eyes still wide, waiting for his heart rate to ease back to normal. The myriad of emotions that crossed his mind stunned him as he looked at Hopper, wondering what – if anything – Hopper could _possibly _say that would make any of what had happened over the last forty-eight hours _okay_.

“I think we should,” Callahan muttered as he stepped to one side to allow Hopper into the house. He glanced around at the street before shutting it – it was empty, the cars still gleaming in the weak sun that filtered through the clouds – no sign of those _monsters_ –

He pulled the door shut with a slam.

Hopper was looking around his setup in the living room when Callahan finished making sure the door was as locked as it could be, taking in the blanket strewn across the couch, the bourbon bottle sideways on the carpet, the television and the radio haphazardly arranged with the volume blaring, the drawn curtains…

“Rough night, huh?” Hopper asked.

Callahan didn’t bother answering.

“The Mayor’s going to start a press conference at one-”

“What the hell’s going on, Chief?” Callahan finally asked, pouring all his exhaustion, confusion, frustration, _fear _into his voice.

Hopper fell silent for a moment, looking at Callahan with an unreadable expression from under his eyebrows.

“I’m not Chief anymore,” Hopper said at last. “And… well, that’s a long story.”

Hopper sat down on the couch, picking up the bourbon bottle from where it fell and setting it on the end table next to the lamp.

“Do you want to sit down?” Hopper asked.

Callahan shook his head, gun still in hand. He didn’t quite know how to put it down.

“Okay,” Hopper sighed, not pressing the issue as he ran a hand over his face. “Okay. Well… you remember when Will Byers went missing?”

Callahan’s eyebrows shot up. _This had been going on for over two years?_

“Well,” Hopper continued. “You know how State hijacked our investigation and falsified the autopsy of that body?”

Callahan nodded in spite of himself.

“Well…” Hopper sighed. “It wasn’t exactly State. It was the Department of Energy.”

“All due respect, Chief, but what the fuck does any of this have to do with last night?”

Hopper ran a hand up and into his hair, looking as exhausted as Callahan felt.

“Everything,” Hopper breathed. “The Department of Energy were running experiments – _weird _experiments. The kind of thing that makes your alien theory look tame.”

Callahan was in serious danger of pulling a muscle in his face as his eyebrows shot further and further up his face. “Wait – those… those _things _last night were _aliens?_”

Hopper looked confused for a second before shaking his head. “No – no – well, not _exactly._”

“Well, what the hell _were _they?”

And so Hopper started talking. He started talking about human experimentation, gateways to another dimension, monsters and missing children, secret government conspiracies to cover it up, official secrets, the _Soviets _finding out, a Soviet invasion in _Hawkins, Indiana, _the Soviets _abducting American citizens…_

Callahan really isn’t sure what the hell he’s supposed to do with that information.

He’s not even sure what the information _is._

Most of what the Chief said went over his head. He wasn’t sure quite where Hopper had lost him – he wasn’t entirely sure whether Hopper ever _had _him in the first place. Still, what little filtered through his brain was that the _things _that had attacked them were sent by the Soviets and what Hopper and Byers and Steve Harrington and Billy Hargrove and everyone else had been trying to do was to stop them. He reached his limit when Hopper slid over a non-disclosure agreement.

_Just like Erica Sinclair had said._

“So… so hang on,” Callahan finally interrupted. “Those things… they’re all _dead?_”

“Yes,” Hopper nodded gravely. “They all died when Hawkins Lab collapsed.”

“So they’re not…”

“They’re not still coming for you, no,” Hopper shook his head, trying to guess where his thoughts were going. He’d missed the exact mark, but had gotten close _enough _to still be of some use. Callahan ran a hand over his face, trying to work out how best to ask what needed to be asked.

“Were there any survivors?” Callahan finally forced himself to say.

Hopper looked towards the window, the curtains still drawn. “You,” he muttered. “Me. All the kids. The Mayor. Joyce. Steve Harrington and Billy Hargrove. Jury’s still out on Powell.”

Callahan’s eyebrows were really pushing the limit of just how high they could go.

“The Mayor managed to get him to a hospital,” Hopper explained. “He was in pretty bad shape. It could still go either way.”

Callahan’s stomach plummeted. Powell had been at Hawkins PD longer than Hopper – longer than _anyone _still there. He had been on the force when Callahan had first joined, and had been Callahan’s first partner. He was his _mentor. _Even through the previous Chief, through Hopper’s return to Hawkins and subsequent descent into a complacent black hole, through Kline, through Harrington’s takeover, through the sudden arrival of all Harrington’s new recruits in the face of a potential disaster, through all the storms that had come their way, Powell had been a _rock. _He had been the one constant, the one reliable constant in an ever-changing landscape. The idea that he could _die – _that he could _lose his life _over this one costly night – was terrifying. It hammered home what Callahan had been feeling all morning – a feeling he finally understood for what it really was.

“I… I can’t go back,” Callahan sighed.

Hopper’s eyebrows creased as he looked over at Callahan.

“Is that because of me?”

The Chief did a damn good job of keeping his voice neutral, but as Callahan looked up at him, he could see a slight hint of regret in his eyes.

“Yes,” Callahan said honestly. “No. I just… I can’t do this. I can’t work with you anymore. I can’t fight monsters – I’m… I’m a _cop. _I’m not a superhero. Taking shit from teenagers, fine. Supervising protests, fine. Babysitting politicians, sure. Investigating break-ins and Tommy Hagan throwing animal blood on people, yeah – fine – whatever. But…”

Callahan rubbed a hand over his face as he spoke more to the floor than to Hopper.

“The last couple days…” he continued. “I’ve worked my ass off investigating my boss for murder. I’ve watched my colleagues get torn apart by _monsters. _I’ve seen people come back from the _dead… _Chief, I can’t work with _that. _What am I meant to _do _with that?”

Hopper looked far, _far _too understanding of that. “I understand,” he muttered. “I get it, Phil. It’s scary. A _hell _of a lot scarier than Tommy Hagan throwing blood on people. But for what it’s worth… you’re a good cop. You work hard, you’re reliable… and if _I’m _the problem, well… you heard Harrington last night, I’ve been fired. I’m not going to _be _there.”

“Do you _know _that?”

It was Hopper’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “I’m sorry?”

“Everything changed last night,” Callahan said. “You know that as well as anyone. Apparently, it’s not the first time it’s happened. Sure, you’ve been fired _now, _but… what if the Mayor changes his mind? What if he offers you your old job back now his kid’s come home? Would you turn it down?”

Hopper was left speechless, looking at Callahan with wide eyes that told him everything he needed to know.

“I thought not,” Callahan said, defeated. “But I can’t do this – I can’t fight monsters with you. I can’t be on the force with you in charge. I’m sorry, Chief, but I can’t do this.”

Hopper looked resigned, saddened, but not surprised by the turn of events.

“I’ll sign your document,” Callahan said shortly, still not meeting Hopper’s eyes. “But then I’m done. I’m out. I’ll send over the resignation to whoever needs it.”

Hopper gave him a small smile.

“Thank you,” he muttered. “What… what will you do?”

Callahan shrugged as he grabbed the pen and scribbled his name down on the paper. “I don’t know,” he breathed. “Get the hell out of Hawkins. Go somewhere nice. Maybe see my uncle down in Tennessee.”

“Will you come back?”

Callahan shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t answer that now. But I’m getting out while I still can. At least for now.”

Hopper nodded sadly. “I get it,” he said gently. “Joyce was talking about doing the same. I convinced her to stay.”

Callahan finally met Hopper’s eyes. “Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

Hopper looked down at the floor, a strange smile on his face. “Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

Hopper stood up sharply, heading towards the door.

“I’m sorry it ended like this, Phil,” he said. “But good luck with whatever comes next.”

Callahan gave Hopper a tight nod. “Good luck fighting monsters.”

Hopper smiled warmly at him, a melancholy smile that crinkled his eyes. “I’ll make sure if you ever _do _come back that you’re safe here.”

Callahan didn’t quite know what to say to that as Hopper opened the door.

“See you around, Phil,” he said softly as he stepped out into the weak light.

Callahan watched him walk down to the end of the driveway.

“Goodbye, Chief,” he muttered as he closed the door before turning to sit down back in front of the news.

_“…We’re here live at Hawkins Town Hall where Mayor Harrington has called a press conference to discuss the strange events of the last few days, after six children were allegedly abducted before turning up safe at a hospital outside Hawkins last night…”_

-:-

Paul found himself staring once again at a microphone, his mouth dry as he looked over at his notes, wondering how on earth they were _ever _going to be enough.

“Eight months ago,” he began, “our town suffered the worst tragedy it has ever seen, costing the lives of many Hawkins residents. At the time, we were told that it was a gas explosion. The truth is that it was something far more sinister. Something about which we as the public – the people that suffered the worst losses from this event – were lied to. The truth about Starcourt is that it was not a gas explosion. It was the result of a clandestine Soviet operation run on American soil. We as residents of Hawkins, as _American citizens, _were attacked eight months ago. And only now has the federal government seen fit to disclose this information.”

-:-

_“…Because of this attack, two days ago saw a fresh attack from the Soviets. Using and testing weapons formulated from the worst possible experiments, the Soviets ran another clandestine operation targeting the Starcourt survivors. Impersonating federal agents, they targeted Joyce Byers and her family.”_

Mike couldn’t help but smirk at the look on Paul Harrington’s face as he watched him on the television with Nancy. His mom had an arm around Nancy, who was curled up on the couch with a blanket over her knees while Holly sat on their dad’s lap. Mike sat on the floor, a little apart from the rest of the family, trying not to throw something in anger. They’d been grounded, with a general instruction to break off any contact with either Jonathan, Will or El until such a time that Hopper and Mrs Byers could be deemed fit parents. Still, Mike could take what little consolation there was in watching Paul Harrington’s face twist at the words that left his mouth, as though the words he was about to say were not at all to his taste.

_“Fortunately, due to the quick thinking of Hawkins Chief of Police, James Hopper,”_

That was an interesting twist in the narrative.

_“Joyce Byers and her family, along with many of the other survivors gathered there managed to escape and contacted the federal authorities.”_

-:-

_“The highest levels of federal government worked hard to preserve the secrecy of the survivors’ whereabouts, choosing not to disclose their location until such a time that they had dealt with the Soviet threat on US soil. However, a separate investigation on a local level brought the police into contact with the Soviet incursion, which sadly…”_

Callahan wanted nothing more than to throw something at the television in annoyance as Harrington broke off, overcome with emotion. _A separate investigation – _he’d done an astonishing job of relinquishing most responsibility. If Callahan was being fair, it was hardly like Harrington had much of a choice of how to handle the crisis of six missing teenagers, but Callahan had had his fill of being fair today as Harrington continued with guilt and horror shining in his eyes.

_“…which sadly resulted in the deaths of nineteen police officers,”_ Harrington finished, his voice remaining determinedly steady.

-:-

Tommy Hagan would not have said that he was _listening _to Paul Harrington’s voice blaring out of the radio beside him as he fiddled with the infuriating headlight on his dad’s car that would not stop flickering. Since arriving at his house after Halloween to find Hopper waiting to uncover enough marijuana to supply the entire party four times over, his dad had taken his car and lent it to his uncle until his community service was done, which meant that he was forced to request the privilege of driving his dad’s car, which today came with the condition that he could only do it if he fixed his headlight.

_“…However, the federal government authorised military action against the Soviet incursion, which resulted in their elimination and the destruction of Hawkins Lab, as well as…”_

That _damn _battery was going to be the death of Tommy – he was going to _kill _his dad – or possibly just break his dad’s car – which was going to result in his own death –

_“As well as the recovery of two Americans held prisoner by the Soviet government, William Hargrove and my son, Steven Harrington.”_

The spanner clattered to the ground as he finally registered what he had just heard. He didn’t listen to the rest of the broadcast – he didn’t even stop to close the hood of the car – he bolted back into the house, yanking the phone off the wall and started dialling Carol’s number from memory.

-:-

Max was feeling slightly more present as her mom sat beside her, a hand wound in hers. The hospital lights above them were turned off, with only the bedside lights giving a warm, dim glow to accommodate for the two people with concussions in the ward. The radio was turned right down low, but Max was tuned into every word as the Mayor announced Billy and Steve’s survival to the world.

_“Mr Hargrove remains in critical condition following the events of last night, but Mr Harrington is expected to make a full recovery. The exact nature of their imprisonment is still to be determined, but rest assured that my family will be cooperating fully with the authorities.”_

Max numbly reached out a hand and turned off the radio, instead curling up towards her mother and allowing her eyes to drift shut.

-:-

“Due to the nature of the ongoing investigation, I will not be taking questions at this time,” Paul finished, ignoring the expectant looks from several reporters gathered in front of him as he swept away from them. He had a call to make.

And then, he needed to go home to Steven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am sorry for how long it took to get this chapter out. It was like pulling teeth, because JESUS I made such a mess of Hawkins and tidying it up is taking a long time. I wasn't particularly happy with any of this chapter, but here we are... Basically it boils down to how much aftermath you all want...
> 
> On a happier note, while getting frustrated with everything to do with this chapter, I ended up taking up drawing again after about a decade of thinking I couldn't, and I've done a couple of sketches for this story. I've done one sketch from the end of Part 1 and one from the end of Part 3 and they're all on tumblr now. I cannot stress how much I haven't drawn in my life so feel free to offer any feedback, any tips, or indeed just tell me to stick to writing, but all you wonderful people have given me so much confidence with my writing and so I hope you enjoy the sketches.
> 
> Part 1 sketch: https://me-4eva.tumblr.com/post/625632702394155009/another-sketch-for-my-story-long-live-the-kings  
Part 3 sketch: https://me-4eva.tumblr.com/post/625082623142789120/show-chapter-archive:


	55. Part 4 Chapter 20: I Think We're Alone Now

The warm comfort of oblivion did not relinquish its hold over Steve easily.

His mind was blank as he lay there, feeling the comfort of his bed, the plump pillows under his head, the welcoming darkness of sleep wrapping him up as he adjusted his comforter under his chin. The mattress beneath him held him in his embrace, his whole body feeling so _relaxed – _more relaxed than he had felt in months as the tension in every fibre of his being melted, altogether forgotten.

Slowly, though, awareness started to penetrate his mind. Memories of the previous night – the morning that had followed – started to make themselves known as his heavy eyelids stayed shut, his body still clinging to the comfort of the best sleep he’d had in he didn’t know how long.

Someone started stroking his hair, a nice, comforting gesture through locks now cleaned of the worst of the grime. He leaned into the touch – he wasn’t alone – whoever was with him was stroking him tenderly, _comfortingly, _letting the last of the sleep fall from him as he finally blinked open his eyes to take in his mom’s face.

“Hey, darling,” she smiled down at him.

He gave a soft hum as he tried to force his muscles into a smile, but his body refused to do anything more than the bare minimum while it was determined to stay relaxed. She kept stroking his hair, clearly not expecting much more of an answer.

“Your father’s home,” his mom said gently, still with that warm smile.

That got Steve’s attention slightly more – _his dad had said he’d needed to go into the office – he said he’d be back in the afternoon…_ “What time is it?”

She smiled more widely at his mumbled question, the hand in his hair finally pulling back as she checked her watch.

“A little after seven,” she said.

Steve glanced towards the window – it was still dark outside –

“You’ve been asleep for most of the day,” she explained softly. “You must have really needed it.”

There was something else in her eyes – some twinge of sadness or regret – Steve finally glanced over to see that she was sitting on one of the chairs she must have brought up from the dining room.

“You stayed?” Steve asked.

His mom didn’t stop smiling but gave him a look of mock indignation at the question. “Of _course_ I did,” she said. “I said I would. Well – except for when I had to get the door – that boy you babysit – _Dustin, _I think he said his name was – curly hair – he came by to drop off some stuff for you.”

Steve blinked. “Oh – uh-”

“I brought it up for you,” she gestured to a duffel bag in the corner of the room. “I think he said he’d asked some people to lend some clothes for you.”

Steve blinked a few times as he looked over at the bag, finally pushing himself up into a sitting position.

“That was…” Steve began, not entirely sure what to make of that. “That was nice of him.”

“Oh – and your father stopped off at a shop before going into work this morning,” his mom said excitedly. “He got you a change of clothes – not anything particularly exciting – you know what your father’s like – doesn’t know what to do with clothes if they’re not a tailored suit – but they’ll do for now.”

Steve’s eyes landed on a white shopping bag. His mom smiled at him as she got to her feet, pressing a quick kiss against his forehead.

“Anyway, I need to go and start thinking about some dinner,” she said. “Your father said you needed to follow some sort of diet, but we can work with that.”

Steve watched her get up and walk over to the door before glancing back at him.

“Are you going to be okay here?” she asked. “I can bring dinner up for you – or you can come down when you’re ready-”

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” he muttered, trying for a smile. “I’ll be down in a little bit.”

She looked reassured by his answer, her smile relaxing into something slightly less worried. She put her hand on the doorknob, looking at him questioningly, wordlessly asking if he wanted it closed. He gave her a tiny nod with a slightly better attempt at a smile and she pulled it to before the sounds of her footsteps dimmed down the hallway.

Steve finally pulled himself out of bed, padding over to the bags in the corner of the room. He glanced inside the paper bag, smiling to himself with a soft laugh as he picked through the clothes his dad had bought for him. His mother hadn’t been lying when she’d said they weren’t exciting – there was a new packet of five pairs of boxers and another pack of briefs, several pairs of socks, a navy sweater and a grey sweater, each with matching sweatpants, and a few plain tees. Still, despite the utilitarian clothing, Steve felt happy to have clothes he could call his own. He ran his hands over the fabric, feeling the soft material under his fingers, relishing in the fact that at least he wasn’t entirely reliant on his father’s wardrobe. As he sorted through the new clothes, touching the tags still attached that proudly declared them new and unworn by anyone before him, he spotted the shoebox at the bottom. He pulled it out, smiling as he opened it to reveal a pair of white Nikes with a red tick on the side, almost identical to a pair he’d had beforehand. They almost gleamed in the low light of the room as he returned them to the box, smiling at the thought of never having to wear any of that hated, hateful uniform the Russians had forced him to wear ever again.

Replacing the shoebox into the shopping bag, he turned towards the old duffel bag that Dustin had brought over, unzipping it. He instantly broke into a grin as he saw his old grey jacket on top of a pile of clothes, a note folded on top.

_Figured you might want this back now I’m not going to freeze. My mom washed it so I can promise it’s clean._

He pulled out the jacket, sure enough smelling the lavender detergent that Steve had long since come to associate with Claudia Henderson. He folded it on his bed, smiling at the Members Only jacket that he’d missed so much. Upon glancing down at the rest of the contents of the bag, he came to the conclusion that Dustin had anticipated the same problem his father had anticipated. He vaguely recognised the tees from Jonathan’s extensive collection, grinning at the _Clash _tee that sat on top of the pile while he sorted through the jeans. Evidently, Jonathan had had the foresight to include a belt or two in the bag along with some old hoodies, but as Steve picked up one of the hoodies, he found it catching on something. As he carefully reached down, he couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that came up at the sight of his old bat, nails sticking out at all angles, carefully nestled in the centre of the clothes to stop his parents from noticing on a quick inspection of the bag.

He folded the clothes back up around the bat before zipping it shut and grabbing a pair of socks out of the bag and pulling them on. He didn’t bother changing out of the pyjamas – they were remarkably comfortable and he was probably going to be going back to bed soon, anyway, but the socks had the added benefit of both being warm and covering up the worst of the burn on his foot. He slipped out of his room and down the stairs.

The dim sounds of his parents’ voices coming from what he could only assume was the kitchen slowly faded into clarity as Steve was greeted by the warm light of the hall and the living room.

_“…But I don’t understand – Paul, are you saying that it was _him _in the house?”_

_“Yes, we’ve been over this.”_

_“But… but _why? _Why wouldn’t he come and _talk _to us?”_

_“I don’t know – from what I understand, he was scared they’d come after us if he came home – I know it doesn’t make sense, but he may not have been thinking clearly. The important thing is the people who hurt him are gone and we’re all _safe.”

Steve stepped into the living room in time to see his dad stepping out of the kitchen. His dad looked startled by his sudden appearance but broke into a smile.

“Hey, Steven,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

Steve managed a shrug and a tiny half-smile. His dad looked understanding at that.

“Well,” his dad said briskly, “the world knows you’re alive.”

Steve’s eyebrows raised. “What’s the story?”

“The truth,” his dad shrugged. Steve’s eyebrows shot higher into his head as his eyes widened in surprise – _the government could not possibly have approved revealing to the public that they had successfully created a portal to another world –_

“That you and Billy Hargrove were imprisoned by the Soviets,” his father continued, seeing the confusion on his face.

_Well, that made a little more sense._

“Owens signed off on that?” Steve asked, more than a little surprised.

“I didn’t exactly give him much choice, to tell you the truth,” his dad managed a slightly mischievous grin. “It turned out to be the most beneficial solution for all parties.”

Steve felt his face smooth out into something vaguely understanding – or at least, an understanding that he probably _wouldn’t _understand. Fortunately, his dad seemed to be happy to move off the subject.

“I – I spoke to the hospital before leaving the office,” his dad said. “Billy – he’s – he’s out of surgery. They’re saying the next twenty-four hours or so are critical.”

Steve’s stomach dropped. _He needed to go – he needed to see him –_

“I asked about visitation,” his dad seemed to read his mind. “They said family only – at least for today.”

Steve’s heart sank at the words. He understood – Max was probably with Billy – Max probably _hated _Steve – she probably wouldn’t want to see him –

“However,” his dad changed the subject. “Hopper told me to ask you to call him. Apparently, they need to set up a formal debriefing of what happened.”

Steve hadn’t even begun to think about that – the prospect of a formal debriefing was so far off his radar that the notion shocked him.

“It doesn’t have to be immediate,” his dad explained, taking in his expression. “It can wait a few days, or you can get it over with so it’s not hanging over your head. I think they want to do it _soon, _but if you’re not feeling up to it…”

His dad trailed off as Steve found himself looking past him, staring into space. The prospect of sitting down in a room explaining the finer details of what had happened to him, going into the horrors that he had _not _divulged to the kids was not an _inviting_ prospect. He felt a well of dread in his stomach – putting it off for a few days was _tempting, _to say the least, but he knew that feeling of dread was only going to get worse the longer he waited.

“I – I think I want to get it over with,” Steve muttered, looking down at his feet as he rubbed the back of his neck.

His dad gave him a tight smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes. “Do you want me to be there? I can take the day off – come with you-”

“No,” Steve blurted out a little too quickly – the idea of his dad hearing the finer points of what had happened made him feel sick to his stomach. “No – uh – it’s okay, Dad – I think…”

He trailed off, not quite sure how to put the sentiment of _‘I don’t want you there’ _in such a way that his dad wouldn’t take personally, but his dad gave him an understanding smile.

“Okay,” he said, the smile touching his eyes as he met Steve’s nervous gaze. “It’s okay. The offer’s there if you change your mind.”

There was something reassuring in his dad’s eyes as he smiled at Steve – something _genuine _that didn’t seem wholly familiar but was entirely welcome. Steve tried for a nervous smile.

“I should – I should probably call Hopper,” Steve muttered. “Did he – I – what’s his number?”

“Oh-” his dad immediately started fumbling in his pockets, drawing out his wallet and finding a small business card with a number scribbled on the back of it. He handed it to Steve with a gentle smile as Steve went back into the hall and over to the phone –

_Which was unplugged._

“Uh – Dad?” Steve called out – _why was it unplugged? Had something happened – had there been a call like Joyce Byers had had?_ W_hat if it wasn’t over? What if the Gate hadn’t closed properly? What if the machine hadn’t been blown up right? What if – what if – what if –_ “Why is the phone unplugged?”

His dad’s head popped around the door as he looked at it, understanding blossoming over his face. “_Oh – _uh – your mother unplugged it. It’s been ringing off the hook since the news broke. I think she was worried it would wake you.”

Steve’s heart still pounded in his chest uncontrollably – _what if it had been from the Upside Down? What if his mom had been getting all these calls like Joyce Byers had from Will? What if – what if the Mind Flayer was trying to reach _him?_ –_

“Hey,” his dad’s voice sounded far off as he stepped into the hallway. “Hey – it was just reporters – we can deal with them-”

Steve looked up at his dad, desperation shining in his eyes as he raised a hand up to his hair – _God, was his hand shaking that much? –_

He flinched at the touch from his dad as a hand landed gently but firmly on his shoulder. He blinked – the hand was steering him towards the stairs – gently pushing him down into a sitting position –

“_Hey – _hey – it’s okay,” his dad muttered as Steve blinked back tears. “I can deal with them – you don’t have to talk to them if you don’t want to-”

He broke off nervously as Steve shook his head at how much his dad had missed the mark about what had reduced him to this state. His dad, finally at a loss for words, simply settled for putting his hand on Steve’s shoulder in a relatively reassuring manner.

“I just can’t believe it’s over,” Steve gasped out at last. “Do I – how do I just… _get to go home _after this? Does everything just – just _go back to normal _now? What if it’s _not _over? What if – what if they survived? What if the Gate didn’t close? I know it sounds stupid – I _saw _the Gate close – but-”

“It’s not stupid at all,” his dad gave him an incredulous look. “Do you know-”

He broke off, shaking his head with a sigh as he put an arm around Steve’s shoulders.

“While you were asleep today,” he sighed, “your mother didn’t leave your side _once _while I got some sleep. I didn’t sleep _well – _even just being in the next room – falling asleep and facing the prospect that you coming home was all just a dream… that was _terrifying, _Steven. I only managed to sleep for about an hour or so. And when I finally _did _wake up – the first thing I did was check on you. And your mother – she hadn’t left. She was just kneeling on the floor – hadn’t even left to get herself a chair. She didn’t want to leave you. Neither of us did. Neither of us wanted to come back and find out that this had all been in our heads the whole time – or for you to just vanish off the face of the earth somehow… But anyway, I got your mother a chair, I got her book in case she got bored, and when I came back from work… she was still there. She hadn’t moved – not even to go to the bathroom. Hadn’t taken her eyes off you. Her book was still there, still on the same page, nothing. Any time she _did _leave – well… It took about three calls from various people – I answered the first two – both reporters – so was the third one, but _she _answered that one. She was so worried about leaving you again that she tore the line out of the socket…”

His dad gave a small shake of the head before continuing. “My _point _is… it’s not stupid that this doesn’t feel over. It doesn’t feel real yet – not to me, not to your mother – but it _will. _We’ll get there. And until then, you’ve got us. We’re not going to let you go. We’re not going to let _anything _bad happen to you again. If anything comes back for you… well, you should have seen the look on your mother’s face when she ripped out the phone.”

Steve managed a small laugh at that. His mom possessed a remarkable ability to level anyone in the vicinity with nothing more than a fierce glare. Both his parents did _cold _like it was an art form, a common interest in that art leading to enough self-expression between them that had seen them through years of unhappy marriage, but his _mother _could do much the same with fire and fury. The idea of his mother unleashing that hellfire on the Mind Flayer or any Russians was an amusing thought. No matter how childishly naïve the thought was.

“I want it to be over,” Steve choked out. “I want it to be over _so badly. _But… but what if – what if they’re still _out _there? What if it comes back? It’s _always _come back before – first it never really went away – then the _Russians _came – who’s going to try it next time? What _else _is there that we _didn’t _kill?”

Voicing these fears – these tiny but deafening fears – even to someone as surprising as his father – finally gave a voice to the ball of anxiety that was bouncing around his stomach, beating at the walls in a desperate attempt to get out, whether in nausea or words, it didn’t care. His father was not his first choice – until the previous night, he would not have even considered his father a choice at all – but here he was, breaking down in a blind panic over something as small as a _phone unplugged… _Even now, when the worst of the anxiety fell away into something akin to shame – _his father would expect better from him after all – or he would do soon enough – _it was strange. Still, his father was almost unrecognisable. His dad had opened up about his own blind panic – his dad had accepted Billy with nothing more than a question about the legitimacy of Steve’s feelings – his dad had even made calls to the hospital to keep Steve updated on Billy’s condition – _Billy’s condition as he lay in that godforsaken hospital, his skin burst open from what Steve had done to him, his heart not working because how could it still work when mere moments after Billy had confessed what was truly inside it, Steve had broken its functionality in a burst of fire for something more important – Steve’s own love driving him as he wanted nothing more than to have Billy back as himself – because he could not stand the thought of the Mind Flayer having him…_

But Steve had been selfish, too. He hadn’t been willing to give up Billy immediately – he should have kept going when he’d first started burning Billy’s leg – if he was prepared to burn Billy to a crisp, he should have done it straight away – he shouldn’t have hesitated at Nancy’s shout – he should have kept going – because if he had, he might never have needed to shoot Billy in the side – he might have been able to _just_ burn Billy’s leg – the Mind Flayer might have left Billy earlier if Steve hadn’t been so _goddamn selfish – _if Steve had just kept going when he was supposed to – like Billy asked him to – then maybe Billy might be okay – maybe they’d be talking about _when _he’d wake up rather than _if _he’d wake up – maybe it would be _Billy _comforting Steve over an unplugged phone rather than Steve’s dad, newly improved and altogether unrecognisable –

“What if Billy doesn’t make it?” Steve gasped, his voice tiny. “What if _that’s_ how this ends?”

His dad readjusted his arm around Steve’s shoulders and Steve fell against his chest. Steve leaned into the touch, the foreign feeling of safety as he pulled himself into the cavern of his dad’s embrace, the warm feeling of safety.

“He’s still here,” his dad murmured. “Right now, he’s still out there fighting. He’s got a lot of people looking after him. He’s not given up, and you can’t give up on him.”

Steve rested his head in the crook of his dad’s neck experimentally, finding what little comfort he could as he tried to put aside a decade’s worth of hesitance at comfort from his dad. His dad gently rested his cheek on the top of Steve’s shoulders, equally hesitant at the contact. Steve tried to think of the last time they’d sat like this – the previous night notwithstanding – but any recent attempt he’d had of seeking out comfort from his father had invariably been met with some variation of the theme of _‘grow up, Steven.’ _To be sat here, so close to his dad, an arm wrapped around him as words failed them both, so much unsaid between them that they couldn’t even _begin _to find the vocabulary for, let alone a syntax more familiar, was new ground. Steve didn’t know where to go from here – and apparently, neither did his father.

“Do you still want to call Hopper tonight?” his dad finally muttered. “I can call him tonight – tell him you’re not feeling up to it – you can call tomorrow or something to set this up-”

“No,” Steve shook his head sharply – the idea of going a full night with something still to do – something left to organise to get this pit of dread that already made him feel sick after just a few minutes – made the nausea all the more potent. “No, I’ll – I’ll call him now. I – I want to get this whole thing over with.”

His dad made a soft noise of understanding – or at least _acceptance _– at Steve’s plan. “Okay,” he murmured. “Do you want me to stay?”

Steve shook his head again as he finally pulled his head off his dad’s shoulder and forced his legs into cooperation. “I should be okay,” he muttered, his voice still little more than a whisper. “I mean, it’s just setting it up, not actually _doing _it. This is the easy part, right?”

His dad smiled at him, a twist of melancholy in his eyes. “Right,” he murmured. “Well, your mother’s just making dinner for you now, so I might go and see if she needs a hand. Come and find us if you need anything, okay?”

Steve nodded, bending down to plug in the phone and picking up the handset, hearing the familiar dial tone coming out of it as his dad got up. As he passed Steve, he hesitantly reached out a hand and wrapped it around Steve tentatively, just _testing the waters, _before pressing a kiss against the top of Steve’s head.

-:-

The morning sun filtered through his window as Steve ran his hands over the new sweatpants.

_Grey or navy? Grey or navy?_

The choice was utterly inconsequential – and yet the most important choice in the world. He’d moved past the bag of clothes that Dustin had brought over in favour of his own, albeit limited clothes. As small as it was, today he wanted to wear things that were _his. _Clothes that had _only _been worn by him. A tiny act of rebellion after months of wearing uniforms chosen by others – the Scoops Ahoy! uniform, the thin, dark grey uniform that had been given to prisoners, the all-black uniform he’d worn as a Soviet soldier that his mother had found in the trashcan in the bathroom and moved it into a garbage bag before putting it out front. Which was why Steve now had two sets of sweatpants laid out on the bed in front of him, freshly bought by his dad, both _Steve’s own clothes,_ which brought Steve back to the most important utterly inconsequential choice of the morning.

_Grey or navy?_

Part of the problem was that both came with matching sweaters – and as much as Steve appreciated his dad going for neutral colours, both the light grey and the navy were remarkably close relations of other uniforms that he was trying to shake. The navy looked too much like the bright blue of the Scoops uniform. The grey looked too much like the prisoner’s uniform.

The only thing that _had _proven easy to choose was the white tee he was currently wearing. It was a choice between black or white – the choice had been easy. The black tee stayed in the bag for the time being.

Steve pulled out the sweaters, hoping that the choice would be made easier by seeing the sweaters laid out in front of him, but the wall of blue and the wall of grey both looked equally uninviting. They both looked too _uniform _– he thought about going and getting a top out of the bag of clothes that Dustin had brought, but the urge vanished as soon as it hit – he wanted to wear _his own clothes. _Not Jonathan’s, not a uniform – _his. _Unfortunately, that brought him back to his current predicament.

_He could choose between the grey set or the navy set._

He didn’t want to wear a _set _of clothes. He missed his stripy polos – he missed his jeans – he missed his soft knitted sweaters – he even missed the garish Christmas jumper Mrs Wheeler had used a combination of etiquette and Christmas enthusiasm to force him into with a series of polite smiles on Christmas Eve in ’83. He didn’t want to be choosing between two _sets _of clothes – two sets that reminded him far too much of the monochrome uniforms he wanted to leave behind.

It was a moment of rebellion that made him do it.

A flash of anger saw him grabbing the two tops and swapping them over, breaking up the sets. He hadn’t had clothes he _could _swap over – hadn’t had alternatives to try –

_He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just… wear one top with the other pants. They were sets. They were both sets. He couldn’t just… break them up._

_Why not?_

The tiny voice in his mind, the rebellious voice that sounded just a little _too _much like Billy dared to ask the question of _why?_ Why did he have to keep the sets together?

_Because they were sets. They belonged together. They weren’t meant to be broken apart – they went together – if they didn’t, then… If they didn’t, then –_

_Then _what?

A well of fear at the moment of rebellion settled in his stomach as he finally forced himself to consider what he was doing. He was _breaking up the sets. _They were _meant to go together. _If they didn’t, then who _knew _what could happen – he’d _never _just… _not_ _worn_ what the Russians hadn’t told him to wear. He hadn’t had a choice in the Upside Down. He hadn’t had a choice in Russia.

He had a choice now.

And as scary as it was, the idea of wearing _two _colours – not just one – _two _colours – not uniform, not matching – a colour combination that _he put together _– made him smile. _He’d chosen those colours. He could wear what he wanted. _

Even something as simple as a mismatched set.

He pulled on the grey sweatpants and the navy sweater, glancing down at the rebelling colours, feeling a warmth, a streak of defiance surge through him at the two distinct blocks of colours. He pulled out his new Nikes, the bright white leather making him squint slightly at the brilliance as he put them on. They felt soft, moulding to his feet as he did up the laces, pulling them tight but not as tight as he’d needed the Russian boots to be.

Fully dressed in new clothes that were _all his own, _mismatched colours and all, he braced himself and stepped out of his bedroom door.

By the time he’d made it into the kitchen, the empowering feeling of wearing his _own _clothes that _he’d _chosen in an outfit that _he’d put together _had won out against the moment of doubt. The more familiar sights of his hall and his living room had set him at ease slightly – _he was home – he wasn’t in Russia – _until he stepped into the kitchen, his mom looking up as the door swung open.

“Hey, darling,” she smiled widely as she saw him, her eyes sweeping down his outfit. “You look good.”

She had no way to know that he’d spent the better part of twenty minutes agonising over the choice of outfit – unless she’d realised that the time between him leaving the shower and him finally emerging, fully dressed, was enough time for his short hair to mostly dry. Steve couldn’t help but feel that she might have been lying – he was fairly certain the plain, no-brand clothes that all but swamped his figure would have looked dreadful if he’d cared to look at himself in the mirror, but Steve appreciated it nonetheless.

“I was thinking,” she mused, turning back to what she was preparing on the kitchen counter. “If you’re going to be out all day at the hospital, I could do a bit of shopping myself? Find some clothes that are a little more inspired – that feel a little more like you?”

Steve hummed noncommittally. “I – I mean… I guess – if you wanted to-”

“I do,” she smiled at him, handing him a plate of toast. “It’s not a problem – unless you’d rather choose – but I don’t have to buy you a whole new closet – but I could get you some jeans – maybe some more inspired sweaters – possibly even-”

“Sure – I mean – that sounds great, Mom – just…”

Steve took a bite of toast to give him something to do as his mom led the way into the dining room, his dad already sat at the head of the table with a paper spread out in front of him, flipped open to page fourteen. Steve sat down in the chair next to him. The food did nothing to settle his stomach as he took another bite, the prospect of what was ahead in the day settling like a lead weight inside him.

His dad looked up at him with a smile as he sat down. Steve took another bite of toast, trying to settle his stomach with a deep breath as his dad turned back to the paper.

“What time is Hopper coming to pick you up?” his dad asked in a voice of forced nonchalance.

The nausea came back with a vengeance as the anxiety of what lay ahead for Steve reared up inside him. “Uh… he said he’d be by around nine.”

His mom hummed quietly, a noise of distinct disapproval hidden behind a veil of concern. Steve glanced over at her at the realisation that it wasn’t just his _father _who had taken an extreme dislike to Hopper in his absence.

“Are you _sure _you don’t want one of us to come with you?” his mom asked, trying to keep the disapproval out of her voice. “I’m very happy to drive you – if you want me to wait, I can-”

“Mom, it’s okay – I want to – I think I want to do it on my own-”

“Are you _sure? _It’s not a-”

“Linda,” his dad cut in softly, a small shake of his head as Steve took another bite of toast. His mom’s concern was touching – truthfully, it was more than he was expecting. But whatever had happened between his parents and Hopper in his absence clearly went beyond what Robin had described in the storm cellar, and trying to work out how best to bridge the chasm between them, appeasing his mother’s concerns and working out the internal politics going on between the three was far too much for this point in time. He couldn’t do it – not today –

_Not when he was preparing to relive the worst moments of his life in far more detail than he would ever wish to give._

Fortunately, his mom seemed to understand and backed off, leaving Steve to eat the rest of his breakfast in silence, each bite tasting of less and less. The nausea wouldn’t abate, though – clearly the dread of what was coming was not about to ease.

His mom whisked away the plate once he was done with it, a glass of water appearing in its place as his mom was a flurry of activity around Steve and his dad, finding all sorts of tasks to do to keep herself occupied. Steve glanced down at the newspaper next to his dad, an article about stock shares taking up the corner closest to Steve –

“I wouldn’t,” his dad muttered quietly as he caught sight of Steve reading the paper over his shoulder. “There’s – there’s quite a lot about _the other day_ in here.”

Steve sighed. His dad had mentioned reporters the previous night – there was probably going to be a media circus _somewhere – _he _really _hoped that the reporters hadn’t found the hospital yet. Though, now that he thought about it, the hospital had pretty tight security – the idea of reporters getting in were slim at best.

He was interrupted from his musings by a knock on the front door. His mom – currently putting silverware away in the cabinet at the far end of the dining room – looked up, an expression of deep displeasure on her face as she silently swept out of the room towards the hall.

Steve followed slowly, pausing in the living room as he wrapped his arms around himself. He heard the door open, Hopper’s gruff voice met by a tone more icy than Steve had ever heard his mother speak.

“Come in,” Steve heard his mother say, her voice positively arctic. “Wipe your shoes.”

His mother swept into the living room without a backward glance over her shoulder, the vestiges of an icy glare with that raw fire burning behind her eyes vanishing as she saw him, breaking into a much softer smile as she wrapped him up in a hug and planted a kiss on his cheek. Steve couldn’t help but get the impression she was shielding him from Hopper as he came into view.

“Hey, kid,” Hopper broke into his own warm smile. “You ready to go?”

His mom shot Hopper a glare over her shoulder before turning back to Steve.

“You’ve got everything?” she asked him, brushing his hair away from his face. “You’ve got your jacket upstairs – do you want to borrow a scarf?”

Steve shook his head. “I should be okay – let me just go and get-”

He was saved from having to specify what, exactly, he needed to get – as though there was any doubt – by the entrance of his father, whose expression hardened at the sight of Hopper. Steve slipped out, not sorry to be shot of his mother’s possessive displays over him for the time being.

He grabbed his grey jacket that Dustin had returned to him, slipping it on over his sweater before heading back to the living room and into one of the most uncomfortable silences he’d ever encountered. His mother was glaring at a lamp right next to Hopper, refusing to meet his eyes but making it painfully clear who exactly the silence was meant for, while his father was still stood awkwardly by the door, his expression hard as he watched Hopper intently. Hopper, for his part, was alternating between looking at his watch and between the two people displaying nothing but cold aggression towards him, his head snapping up to smile at Steve the second he re-emerged.

“You ready?” Hopper asked.

Steve nodded tightly. His mom moved over to him, wrapping him up in another tight hug.

“If you need us, call us, okay?” his mom said with a smile. “Your father’s just going to be at the office all day – you’ve got the number – just give us a call and we’ll come pick you up.”

His dad placed a gentle hand on his shoulder as his mom released him. “Good – good luck today, Steven.”

The awkward sentiment hung between them, words said as something to be said rather than any real sentiment, but Steve appreciated them all the same. Hopper hung back tactfully before Steve walked over to join him, the pair stepping out into the crisp morning and into Hopper’s Cruiser.

“I thought you were fired,” Steve queried as he took in the police vehicle.

“Yeah, well, nobody’s stopped me yet,” Hopper shot a cheeky grin over at him.

They lapsed into a relatively comfortable silence as they drove towards the hospital. Steve was relieved to have a moment where he was not expected to _speak, _to _talk about how he was feeling, _because Steve was so _tired _of answering with the same bare-faced lie. The same, extremely _obvious _lie because to delve into the truth would take several hours and involved dealing with _far _more than what Steve was prepared to deal with at any one moment. He felt like he was floating on top of a huge underwater trench, where if he cared to dive down into the darkness, he’d realise _just _how out of his depth he was, just how much was lurking in the darkness, and if he cared to search in it, he’d drown in everything he was feeling. So instead, he just floated, his head barely staying above the water.

The only time Hopper broke the silence was to ask whether Steve wanted the radio on. Steve gave a noncommittal shrug, and as such, Hopper slipped in a Jim Croce cassette.

The drive to the hospital was shorter than Steve remembered it. It wasn’t long before they pulled up before the electric gates and Hopper handed some ID to someone in a booth. They were waved in with no trouble, pulling up into a parking lot outside the front entrance.

The sight of the building in the cold light of day suddenly hit Steve like a freight train. _He was here – he was really doing this –_

“Hey,” Hopper said softly, noticing his sudden change in demeanour. “You just need to get through today, okay? It’s just going to be me and Owens in that room. Then you can start putting this behind you.”

_ -Everything felt so impossible – what if they didn’t believe him – what if it was like Ozerov – what if they asked him something he couldn’t answer and they didn’t believe him if he didn’t know –_

“I’ve spoken to the Mayfields, too,” Hopper continued when Steve showed no sign of moving. “We can find a time today for you to see Billy.”

Billy’s name broke through his panic in a way nothing else had, because he hadn’t even _considered _the possibility that he was going to be _in the same building as Billy again – it had been so long since he’d last seen him – the last time Steve hadn’t seen him in this long, it had only been a few days but he’d still shot a kid in the head for him –_

The thought of being able to see _Billy _was what finally brought him to open the car door, because it was _Billy. _After spending so much time with him – after having Billy as the _only _positive constant in his life, going into this strange new world where his parents were ridiculously attentive and he could shower again whenever he wanted under hot water and not have to worry about whether the amount of food he was eating would cause it to run out _without _Billy felt like Steve had lost a limb. He wanted nothing more than to see him, to talk everything over with him, to simply just _talk _to him like they’d done in the storm cellar or out on the grassy hill under the sun.

As Hopper said, he just needed to get through today.

Hopper led the way into the foyer of the hospital where the pretty receptionist gave him a wide smile before calling Doctor Owens, who materialised a few minutes later through a door to one side. There was a soft greeting – _Owens might have shaken his hand; Steve couldn’t quite remember – _before leading them down a corridor into a conference room. The white walls and cold fluorescent lights gave the room a sterile feel as Owens got himself settled down at the table, pulling out a manila file and a tape recorder.

“Now, Steve, do you mind if I record this? It’ll save me taking near-constant notes and it’ll save my hand a lot of cramp.”

Steve blinked at the question, not really thinking about it before giving a tiny shrug. Owens smiled at him, gesturing at a chair with a soft _‘please’ _before fiddling with the small portable machine, slotting in a blank cassette tape. Steve sat down, his stomach doing somersaults – _he couldn’t do this – he couldn’t do this –_

_He _could _do this. For Billy._

Hopper sat down in the chair next to Steve, resting a reassuring hand on his arm as Owens finally deemed himself happy with the tape recorder’s setup.

“Now, Steve, the way this is going to work is we’re just going to ask you some questions about what happened to you, just to make sure everything’s on the record. If you can answer with as much detail as you can, that would be really helpful. Anything you can remember about the Soviet operation could be incredibly useful in working out how to make sure they never do anything like this again. But the important thing to remember is that this is _not _an interrogation. We’re all friends here, we’re all on the same side, and part of this is to help work out the best way for us to help you going forward. So if you need anything, a glass of water, a snack, or if it gets too much and you need a break, all you need to do is _ask, _okay?”

Steve nodded tightly. The urge to ask if this whole process could simply be skipped sent words dancing on his tongue, but he swallowed them down. He understood the purpose of this – he understood why it needed to be done. That didn’t make it any easier to _do _it, but he knew that if by doing this, he could in some small way make up for putting everyone in danger, he would do it. And if _he _did this now, then when – he quashed the rebellious voice in his mind that said _‘if’_ – Billy woke up, then they wouldn’t make _Billy _do it later.

“Okay, do you have any questions before we start?” Owens asked.

Steve shook his head. Owens smiled reassuringly as he pressed the small button with the red circle on the side of the recorder.

_“Debriefing – Steven Harrington, February 6th, 1986, regarding operation two-zero-four-nine-five-eight-zero-six…”_

-:-

Steve ended up talking for over four hours.

True to his expectations, Owens had pressed him for every minute detail. Anything he wanted to gloss over, Owens would pick up on and query him about. The recorder captured every single word that Steve said, but Owens was still taking notes – about what, Steve didn’t care to see. Possibly some hidden meaning, or observation, or a plan of what to do next.

Every single word Steve said felt like poison in his mouth. He didn’t notice when his voice started shaking – he didn’t notice the tears slipping down his face – but Owens didn’t stop him when he was talking, save to ask him questions. There were occasional moments of clarity for Owens and Hopper as Steve elaborated on parts of the story that they had only guessed at based on the limited descriptions that he and Billy had offered in that storm cellar. Hopper made a strange noise as Steve described burning his own leg with the flamethrower in the Upside Down, but ultimately managed to refrain from interrupting.

As the story went on, Owens’ professional mask intensified, the geniality slowly evaporating into the same persona Steve had encountered when Owens had checked him over in the hospital room. His voice was clinical as he asked the questions. Hopper’s eyes ended up falling onto a spot on the wooden table, his dark look intensifying with every word.

Steve reached his limit when he finally explained about the boy.

He explained about his loss of any sense of time in Billy’s absence – how he’d felt like he’d been losing his mind – how he’d been handed a gun and told that in order to get Billy back, he’d needed to shoot the boy. Owens didn’t ask him to explain how Steve had botched the shot, even from point-blank range, forcing him to take a second attempt, but Steve told them anyway. Here, finally reliving those few minutes, it felt like his body was at last rejecting the poison he was bringing up into his mouth and past his lips as he forced himself to tell them everything.

_So he never had to again._

A ringing silence fell after he explained that he didn’t know how he’d gotten back to his cell, how he’d covered his hands in blood the only way he knew how and screamed until his voice gave out. The words stopped coming, a wave of nausea blocking any further speech as he felt sick to his stomach. Owens’ mask of clinical detachment wavered slightly, the cracks showing utter horror and disgust in his eyes. Hopper’s breathing was just a fraction too deep, a fraction too regulated as his head was turned down towards the table and ever so slightly away from Steve so he couldn’t quite see the full extent of just how _wide _Hopper’s eyes were as he gave the table that same, horrified dark look.

_They knew. They knew – and they hated him for it –_

Steve started to feel panic bubble up in his throat –

_Wait – not panic –_

He just about managed to gasp out a plea for the bathroom before he clamped a hand over his mouth, desperately trying to force himself not to be sick. Hopper’s hands were surprisingly gentle on his shoulders as they led Steve out into the hallway and across into a bathroom. Steve fell to his knees with a painful thud in front of the first toilet he could see, his stomach heaving as it expelled its contents. The toast his mom had so lovingly prepared for him tasted like ash and bile as it left his body, his mom’s efforts rendered fruitless as Steve absurdly felt melancholy at the loss of the food _his mom made for him_.

He didn’t even notice the hand on his back, gently rubbing up and down until he fell back away from the toilet and into it. Steve glanced nervously at Hopper, crouched down at the door to the stall, but for once, Hopper didn’t have words. Steve noticed he looked pale – several shades paler than he had done earlier. He gave Steve a tight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes before turning towards the partition between the stalls, an unreadable expression on his face. Steve’s eyes fell shut at judgement Hopper was so clearly trying to hide from him as he turned back towards the toilet, noticing the tears in his eyes for the first time as he felt a fresh wave bubble up, keeping his head facing the far more appealing sight of puke and bile swirling in amongst the water in the bowl.

Satisfied there was nothing left in his stomach _to _throw up, Steve reached blindly for the flush, watching water swallow the worst of his panic as he tried to force himself to his feet. Large, strong hands wrapped themselves around him, helping him up as his legs kept folding beneath him like a new-born deer. Steve braced himself against the solid, reliable pillar that was Hopper, forcing his legs to finally cooperate.

“You ready to go back in?” Hopper asked quietly, his voice carefully devoid of anything.

Steve nodded against Hopper’s shoulder, still leaning on him far more than necessary. The sturdy arms still stayed wrapped around him, holding him tight in something close to a hug – _as if Hopper could stand to hug him now – _but it was enough for Steve to pretend – for Steve to force himself to walk out of the bathroom, across the hall and back into the sterile white room.

Owens looked up as they entered, determinedly schooling his features back into that clinical mask. They took a moment, Hopper going and getting a few glasses of water from a water dispenser that Steve hadn’t noticed in the hall. Steve sipped the water slowly, trying not to relate the rush of water in his mouth like _the goddamn water when he’d been strapped to that bench –_

One sip. Swallow. Breathe. Breathe again. One more for luck. Okay, two more for luck. Optional third breath for luck. Repeat.

Owens resumed the debriefing once the glasses were drained, renewed understanding in his eyes at the length of time it took Steve to finish his own glass in light of everything he’d relived that morning. The debriefing became a little easier from there as Steve described working for the Russians. Owens was particularly interested in the training process and the setup of the operation, the focus of his questions looking into details Steve hadn’t deemed important at the time – from the faces on the targets in the various shooting ranges painted into grotesque caricatures of American stereotypes through to Volkov’s insistence at Russian being spoken at all times, teaching them. The questions focused on the hierarchy, the operation, and, albeit briefly, Billy and Steve’s ultimate role in the operation. Steve ended up retelling the entire story of the few days he’d been back in the country, covering the break-ins at Melvalds, his own house and Max’s bedroom through to finding the others and rescuing them from Volkov’s men. He told the full story of the day after that, right up to the point where he’d been wheeled into an ambulance in shock. The details following that became so blurry that Owens finally called it a day with a soft smile.

“Thank you for that, Steve,” Owens gave him a smile as he flicked the tape recorder off, packing it away. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

Steve felt numb – the words being said to him sounded like they were coming from another room. His ears were ringing. Dim echoes of words that had left his mouth that he didn’t remember saying bounced around his head long after the fact.

“Come on,” Hopper murmured – _his voice didn’t sound any closer than Owens’ _– a hand gently landed on his shoulder blade and guided him to his feet. “Let’s go find some lunch.”

Steve dimly heard Owens giving Hopper some instructions about telling the cafeteria staff his name in order to follow his diet – _that goddamn diet that seemingly had gone out of the window when Steve had lost his breakfast – had skipped the mid-morning snack that Owens had told him about – he would probably need to start again tomorrow – when he _wasn’t _going to be talking about –_

He shook his head like a dog trying to rid its ears of water, hoping that the physical action would get rid of that thought before it could form. Instead, he focused on the corridor that swung aside into the reception area – the receptionist smiling too sweetly at him – he turned his head away – _she didn’t know – she didn’t know what he was – he didn’t deserve it –_

The wider hallways faded past him as Hopper’s ever-guiding hand steered him into a virtually empty cafeteria. Steve hovered behind Hopper as Hopper muttered – _something _– to the cafeteria staff before a tray was set down in front of him on the counter while Hopper got his own. He numbly followed Hopper round to a table, carrying the bright red plastic tray that was just a little _too _bright to be comfortable to look at. He sat down at the seat, picking up the fork with shaking hands and gently prodding at the food – _that was what you were meant to do with forks – poke the food with them – that’s why they were shaped like that –_

“Hey,” Hopper’s gentle voice jerked his head up, but Steve couldn’t quite bring himself to look at him. “You need to eat something.”

_But there was so much of it –_

“Hey, just… just try and eat half, okay?” Hopper suggested. “See how you’re feeling then.”

_Half – that was – yeah, that was doable – he could do that – he could eat half._

The first bite still tasted like ash in his mouth.

“Hey, kid,” Hopper had finally found his voice – or at least, the _words. _His voice had always been present, but the words had completely escaped him. The longing to simply _scream _in response to what Steve had described had been there, but the kid didn’t need to deal with that – he clearly had enough of his own guilt on his shoulders – Hopper had no desire to add to it. The kid had clearly been _looking _for some reaction – some _confirmation _of something going on in his head, but Hopper and Owens had made a point to keep their reactions to themselves. It was something Owens had instructed him on the previous night after Steve’s call when Hopper had set up the debriefing.

_Don’t let him see how it’s affecting you. It’s not about you. It didn’t happen to you._

Hopper was met with absolute silence as Steve stabbed a piece of lettuce with his fork, before simply holding his fork in place, staring at it, hunched over, head bowed.

“Kid,” Hopper said softly – because_ Jesus, he was still so young, he was only nineteen, for God’s sake – _

“Just _say it, _Hopper,” Steve spat out, his voice just above a whisper but sitting higher in his register than it should have done. “Just say how much you _hate _me now, okay? Get it over with – stop pretending like it’s okay – like the person I’ve changed into is _okay._”

Hopper stopped short, the emotional outburst hissed across the table finally shining a light on what was _still _holding Steve back – what had _always _been holding Steve back.

“Kid, I don’t think you’ve changed _at all,_” Hopper frowned at him.

Steve’s head snapped up, stunned disbelief shining in his eyes for the briefest moment at the _last _words he expected to hear before he let out a derisive tut and turned his head to one side.

“Did you _miss _the part where I _shot a goddamn kid _in the head – _twice – _because they told me that Billy was alive?”

Hopper barely managed to repress a wince, forcing himself to take a deep breath as he looked down at the food.

“No, I didn’t,” he said in a voice that he hoped sounded more calm than he felt. “I also didn’t miss how much it’s been tearing you apart, _or _the part about how they told you they’d kill Billy if you _didn’t._”

Steve didn’t respond to that – _at all. _No words, no movement, no change in expression, not even so much as a blink. Hopper sighed, shifting slightly in his seat.

“Kid, have you ever heard of something called _duress?_”

The barest glimmer of a frown crossed Steve’s face as he finally turned back to his food. “Isn’t that – like – forcing someone to do something at gunpoint or something?”

Hopper nodded slightly. “Exactly. There’s a legal defence – your dad would probably know more about the different types – but with physical duress, _like threatening to kill someone… _the person under duress basically becomes a tool for the person forcing them to do something-”

“But it wasn’t _me _they were threatening to kill,” Steve muttered bitterly.

“That doesn’t matter,” Hopper muttered. “You had _every _reason to believe that they were going to kill Billy if you didn’t shoot that kid or go work for the Soviets. The choice was taken out of your hands – there was _never _a choice for you. Ozerov _used _you – just like you used that gun. _Ozerov_ killed that kid, not _you_. You were just the tool he used to do it.”

Steve finally looked up from the plate to meet Hopper’s eyes. Hopper gave him a warm, sad smile as the barest spark of hope ignited in Steve’s chest.

“Sure,” Hopper muttered. “You did some pretty extreme things out there. You did some pretty horrific things out there. But you were in some pretty extreme and horrific conditions. And the _reasons _you did those things – protecting your friends, trying to keep trouble away from the kids, doing _whatever you could _to help the people you cared about – those sound like the same Steve Harrington that I remember. The same Steve Harrington _those kids _remember.”

Steve turned back to his food, not daring to let that element of hope grow beyond the spark. The sentiment Hopper offered was tempting, but Steve didn’t let himself take it – it felt too _easy _to simply refuse responsibility for what he’d done – for the _life _he’d taken – to say that _Ozerov made him do it, so it was all Ozerov, _because Steve _had _had a choice – he _could _have chosen to let Billy die – to have refused, or to have taken that gun and shot _Ozerov _instead – there _had _been choices – and he had made _his._

He finally put the fork into his mouth, chewing on the lettuce as it lost what little flavour it possessed. He kept chewing, past the point where it was pleasant, long past the point it would have been easy to swallow –

“_Steve,_” Hopper muttered as Steve kept chewing, looking down at his fork. “I get it. Owens gets it. I know it’s not easy, but you’ve got to remember – you were in a place you _never _should have been. You were dealing with something _nobody _should ever have had to deal with – let alone a _kid. _You’re _nineteen. _And – hell – you managed something pretty damn impossible. You _survived. _You got out. You got _Billy _out. You did a damn good job of screwing up the Soviets’ operation – _twice – _and you managed to keep yourself and Billy alive in the process. And _you_ _came home. _You saved our asses at Joyce’s place. If you hadn’t made the decisions you made, this whole thing would have been _so _much worse. If you hadn’t survived, you have no _idea _how bad this could have been. But you _did _survive. You came home. You told us – not, admittedly, as quickly as I would have liked in an ideal world, but I get it – and you helped stop it. You didn’t hesitate to do what needed to be done to put an end to this – _at any point. _You should be – you should be _damn proud of yourself, _to tell you the truth.”

Steve looked up in astonishment, the echoes of his own words to Dustin on the side of that hill coming back to him. An immediate urge to deny it shot through him, but the mouthful of lettuce forced him to swallow before he could, the one thing still weighing on his mind – the one thing that wouldn’t _stop _weighing on his mind – the most _important _thing still weighing on his mind pulled his smile down.

“Didn’t exactly get _Billy _home alive,” he murmured more to his plate than Hopper. “He’s in hospital because of what _I _did to him-”

“Exactly,” Hopper cut across before he could finish. “He’s in _hospital. _Not _dead. _If it had been up to me… I probably wouldn’t have taken that chance. That thing _never_ would have let him go. It was a goddamn _Hail Mary, _taking control of Billy like that. The _only _reason he stood a fighting chance was because of what _you _did.”

Steve stabbed at another bit of lettuce. “The others don’t see it like that-”

“The others don’t _know _what they saw,” Hopper said. “To tell you the truth, it wasn’t until you told us _everything _just now that _I _knew what I saw back in the Lab. But… they can guess. They know what you did was to try and help him. And if _you _hadn’t done something, I _would _have. And I can tell you now, Billy would have been a lot further from my mind than yours.”

Steve’s eyes fell closed as the lettuce fell from the end of his fork. He couldn’t stop the image of Billy’s body twisting as he fell, black smoke pouring from his face as it left him. He could remember it with sickening clarity, the fraction of a second between knowing that it had left Billy and forcing himself to react, to drop the flamethrower, the fraction of a second where he caused Billy more pain than absolutely necessary. Not for the first time, he could feel the stillness of Billy’s chest under his hands, the void beneath the skin on Billy’s wrist as he pressed his fingers down, searching for a pulse, the way Billy _hadn’t been breathing –_

“Hey,” Hopper’s voice was sharp and gentle at the same time, dragging Steve out of his own head. “Try and eat some more, okay? Then we can go see him.”

Nothing but the burning urge to see Billy for himself – _no matter how bad the damage was _– could have led Steve to start eating with any real degree of efficiency. He managed the half of the meal that he’d agreed with Hopper, and then at the slight prompt managed another two thirds or so of what was left. He couldn’t quite bring himself to finish it, though – not with his stomach still feeling delicate.

Hopper ended up taking the trays away while Steve gathered his thoughts, his heart pounding against his chest as his imagination went into overdrive at the prospect of seeing Billy – _what would Billy look like – how bad would the damage be – would he still look like himself, or would he be so hidden beneath machines and bandages holding him together, keeping him alive that he wouldn’t be recognisable –_

He didn’t even notice starting to move until they’d left the cafeteria, wandering through the halls of the hospital, still white, still sterile and devoid of any comfort as he and Hopper wandered through parts of the building he didn’t recognise – _or maybe he did recognise them, but he’d been so far from himself that he hadn’t committed them to memory – or maybe they all looked the same and even if he did remember them, there was no chance of being able to pick out the parts he did remember from the endless assortment of white. _Hopper led him under lights that he could have sworn had flashed above his head the last time he’d been here, pulsing rhythmically in an attempt to calm him.

Hopper finally came to a halt outside of a white door next to a window, the blinds closed to give the occupant some privacy. Hopper gave a small knock on the door while Steve braced himself for whatever sight would greet him – despite the sickening clarity with which Steve remembered Billy’s stillness beneath his hands, he couldn’t remember what Billy had _looked _like in those fateful moments – _images of Billy’s face, completely burnt off, shot through his imagination – but that wasn’t right – he hadn’t burnt Billy’s face – had he burnt Billy’s face? He couldn’t remember –_

A woman Steve could only assume was Max’s mother by the frizzy auburn hair that tumbled over her shoulders, any style long-since lost after over twenty-four hours waiting in a hospital, opened the door. She, at least, seemed to have forgiven Hopper in a way his own parents hadn’t as she gave Hopper a small smile, beckoning them inside. Steve took a deep breath and followed Hopper into the room.

Billy looked simultaneously better and _so much worse _than Steve had imagined. He looked better insofar as Steve’s imagination had been conjuring up pictures of a skinless almost-corpse, eyelids and eyeballs gone, mouth left as nothing more than a gaping hole of exposed flesh and muscle tissue, the tendons exposed to the elements. He looked _so much worse _in that for all Steve’s imagination could create horrors, _nothing _would compare to the fact that _this was real. _The authenticity of Billy, lying there with a tube protruding from his mouth, too still without even a gown, his blistered, burnt chest hidden behind thin layers of white fabric, tubes leading from bags full of clear liquid going into his arms, hit Steve like a car crash, the air in Steve’s body leaving all at once.

_What had he done?_

Max was sitting on a chair next to his bed, a hand wrapped up in his. His upper arms were bandaged, but his forearms and hands remained clear. Max stiffened but didn’t look up as Steve walked into the room, didn’t offer any greeting, and word or gesture of comfort, or even an update on his condition as Steve walked closer to Billy, taking in the full extent of his handiwork.

Steve couldn’t blame her.

Her mom came up beside her, gently resting a hand on her shoulder. She jumped at her touch, her eyes tearing away from Billy’s face as she stared at her mother with huge, round eyes.

“Come on, honey,” her mom muttered. “Let’s go get something to eat – I think the cafeteria’s still serving-”

“Mom, I don’t want to go…”

What was left of Steve’s heart broke at the gasped, desperate plea, her voice thick as she begged her mom.

“I know, honey, but you need to eat something-”

“I don’t want to go – I don’t want to leave him-”

Steve didn’t want to be the reason Max was deprived of any moment to spend with Billy, but his own voice was lost behind the sob that threatened to explode out of him at the sight of Billy just _lying _there, a statue, frozen in time with a machine controlling the rise and fall of his chest, the beat of his heart. There was nothing left of Billy – just a shell of who he was.

Steve simply couldn’t speak. He couldn’t do anything but stand there, at the end of Billy’s bed, staring as Max’s mom gently coaxed her out of the room, her protests lost behind a defeated exhaustion. Hopper stayed hovering by the door, watching Steve intently.

“I’ll give you a moment,” Hopper muttered. “I’ll just be outside if you need anything.”

The door fell shut, leaving Steve alone with Billy. Steve couldn’t have told how long he stood there, frozen, time only measured by the soft uncountable beeps of the monitor above Billy’s head measuring his heart rate. He had no idea what to do – how to make this better – _because there was no making this better._

He took a couple of tentative steps towards the chair Max had vacated, reaching out and gently taking Billy’s hand in his own. It was cold, the skin rough and calloused under his touch, and _dry – too dry – _Steve supposed his own skin felt that way, too.

Steve’s legs started shaking as he sat down in the chair, pulling it a little closer to Billy’s head. At a loss for anything else to do, he reached up his free hand and started stroking though Billy’s curls. They still felt lank and messy, oily, almost _damp_, whether from dirt or sweat or something else, Steve didn’t know.

“Hey, Billy,” Steve breathed as he stared down at his empty face, thankfully untouched by scars that stopped just below his neck. “I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you before now. I was – I was _sleeping, _to tell you the truth. Apparently, the doctors agree with you that I haven’t been doing enough of that, so they gave me these pills – I can’t pronounce the name, but – well, they’re pretty good.”

He gave a tiny laugh as tears slipped down over his cheeks at the complete lack of response. He could imagine Billy’s face if Billy had been awake to respond – a mixture of unimpressed scowl and triumphantly superior smugness, possibly with a comment about how he’d been right all along.

“It’s been really weird,” Steve continued. “Going home. Being – being home _without you. _I got so used to you being around that I don’t really know what to do with myself anymore. And – and my parents have started being – well – _parents. _My mom has been around pretty constantly, and my _dad – _well…”

Steve wiped away the tears on his face with the back of his hand before going back to stroking Billy’s hair.

“I told my dad about you,” Steve breathed. “About _us. _He was… he was _weirdly okay _with it. I keep – I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop – for him to turn around and say that he doesn’t want me to _be _like this, but… but he’s been _good _about it. Well, he’s been _good _about most things, period. I started freaking out about the _phone _being unplugged – _the fucking phone, for God’s sake _– and he wasn’t judgemental or anything, didn’t tell me I was getting upset over nothing, even though I _was… _But it’s… it’s not the same as having _you _around, you know?”

A sob welled up and Steve didn’t bother trying to stop it.

“_God, _Billy, I’m _so sorry. _I’m sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry I put you here – I should have tried harder – I should have found another way – or just kept at it when I first started trying – or done _something _that meant that you didn’t end up _here. _Even though it’s over, nothing feels the same anymore and I just want _you. _Everything feels _wrong _without you, Billy, and I _need _you. This _never _should have been how this ended – not for _you, _at least. You deserve _so much more _than this – you deserve the _world, _Billy.”

He stroked back Billy’s curls in the way that always made Billy lose the thread of whatever he was saying. He glanced briefly up at the heart monitor, wondering if it would have any effect on his heart rate, but the number displayed on the screen didn’t change.

“I had a – a _debriefing _today,” Steve explained, tearing his eyes away from the monitor regretfully. “You’ll probably have one too – it was just Owens and Hopper asking me about everything officially. But I – I had to tell them about everything. And afterwards, Hopper kept telling me that all these things weren’t my fault – that I got us home – and all I wanted to do was to tell him that it was all _you. You _were the reason we made it home alive to make this any better. You were the _only _thing keeping me going. Without you, I’d probably still be being the Soviets’ pet or something, or else I’d be dead in some ditch in Russia. And I’m so sorry that _this _was what you got in return…”

He took a deep, shuddering breath as he shifted the seat closer to the bed, leaning closer. He tentatively brushed the curl sitting in the middle of his forehead away to one side, being as gentle as he could before bending down, low, over Billy’s head and pressing his lips as gently as he possibly could against his forehead. The cold, clammy skin under his lips felt so _unlike _Billy, so _wrong, _that the gesture sent a fresh wave of tears through him. He pulled back, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth to hold back a sob – to hold _in_ the taste of Billy, to _never _let it go. The urge to breathe finally sent his lips parting, a desperate gasp leaving him as he finally broke down completely.

“I miss you, Billy,” Steve sobbed as he squeezed the cold hand still in his own, resting his head down on the pillow inches from Billy’s head, careful not to touch him in case he broke. “I need you to wake up. _Max _needs you to wake up. This _can’t _be how it ends. We all need you – _I _need you. I can’t do this without you. I really miss you, Billy. I really, _really _miss you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as much as I love aftermath as much as the next person, I don’t want to drag this fic out too much. I’m thinking there’s probably about one, possibly two more chapters left to go plus an epilogue. I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW CLOSE WE ARE TO THE END!
> 
> Also I seem to have completely lost the ability to not write every single moment. Seriously, I kept going back and rewriting things because I was just writing to get characters to different rooms. So yeah, the long rambling bits of Steve doing not very much were very much a function of that… Sorry…


	56. Part 4 Chapter 21: If And When

The days and weeks that followed started to blur into one.

The doctors kept a close eye on Billy’s condition. They started to become a little more optimistic in their outlook as more time went by where Billy didn’t get worse. They had made it painfully clear that there was still every possibility that Billy _could _get worse, but they at last dared to hope that he could get better, too.

Hopper and Joyce found themselves adjusting to unemployment, the time proving to be extremely useful as they kept their kids out of the worst of the spotlight while El recovered. If El or Joyce noticed how Hopper hugged them a little longer and a little tighter in the days following Steve’s debriefing, neither of them said anything.

Steve spent his days at the hospital, sat by Billy’s bedside with Max. She didn’t talk to him – didn’t even _look _at him – but they reached an uncomfortable understanding, holding Billy’s hands in silence, listening to the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor.

Steve’s mom gave him back the keys to his car the day after his debriefing. Steve had been slightly stunned – his car was something Steve had barely even thought about; something he’d assumed was simply _gone forever _like the rest of his possessions. Still, Steve had been grateful – _more _than grateful – not just at the old car that he’d loved but at the _freedom _that came with it. Being able to drive _himself _to and from the hospital – or, indeed, wherever he wanted – meant that he wasn’t reliant on his parents and all the inevitable questions that would come with asking for a ride – though, to be fair, the questions couldn’t be stopped entirely. So his days became a cycle of breakfast at home, sitting with Billy until the time dictated that he was supposed to go and eat lunch before sitting with Billy again until he needed to go home and eat dinner. With so little variation to his routine that was _comfortable_, time started getting marked far more with events rather than days.

Owens started to review his diet. After the first few rocky days where Steve was still getting settled into being back at home, he’d started following it much more to the letter, managing full meals as opposed to leaving parts that he couldn’t quite manage. Owens was generally pleased by how things were going, gradually upgrading the diet into something a little more intense. He also gave Steve a clean bill of health for his lungs, giving him permission to smoke again with a disapproving nod, but that he _‘really should take it easy and that he should seriously consider whether he wanted to take up smoking again.’ _Owens also reviewed the dosage of his sleeping medication, lowering it to a tablet every other night after a week.

The first night off the medication, Steve woke up screaming.

The horrific image of Billy, lying dead on the floor – _he’d been dead all this time – nothing had been real – all their time in Russia had been with the Mind Flayer – it had finally left Billy to take him, leaving nothing but a broken corpse of Billy on the floor, eyes glassy, chest too still – _was all Steve could see as his mom came bursting into the room. He’d clutched at her, sobbing as she’d just held him, stroking his hair back as he couldn’t do anything – couldn’t even speak – could just sit there, shaking uncontrollably, being held up by his mom. He hadn’t gone to sleep after that – _he was too scared to try. _So he sat there, waiting out the rest of the night, curled up in his mom’s arms illuminated by the soft glow of the new bedside lamp his mom had chosen.

He stopped off on the way to the hospital that day to pick up a nightlight. But even something as simple as walking into a store in the most nondescript clothes his new closet had to offer proved to be a challenge in and of itself.

Steve had begun to realise that the story of his return to Hawkins had caused a media frenzy. Despite his dad’s best attempts to shield him from it, he couldn’t ignore the front pages that passed through their letterbox. Nor could he miss the occasional sound of his father – sounding much more like the man Steve remembered – threatening down a phone to ban various people or papers from all future press conferences in Hawkins if they didn’t _‘leave his family alone.’ _But he hadn’t quite realised the extent to which he’d been shielded from the worst of it until he walked into Melvald’s.

The store itself was largely empty – one of the virtues of it being a weekday – but the chime above him cheerfully dinged to announce his entrance. He walked over to the far side of the shop that housed lightbulbs of various shapes and sizes, grabbing the first nightlight he could see, briefly acknowledging his surprise that _Melvald’s _sold nightlights before going to pay. Donald Melvald was on the till, blinking in surprise at Steve as pulled out the new wallet his mom had bought him along with most of a department store’s inventory of clothes.

“_Steve Harrington?_” a voice echoed out from the street.

Steve’s head snapped up in surprise, turning towards the window, his eyes landing on Tommy Hagan. Steve found himself forcing a smile as Tommy’s face broke into something far more genuine and excited than Steve could manage himself. The door swung open, a chime dinging above them as Tommy all but ran the three steps over to him.

“_Steve!_” Tommy burst out. “Holy shit, it’s really _you!_”

The _last _thing Steve wanted was to find himself having to pretend that anything was even _close _to normal, to get sucked into a conversation he’d actually need to provide his own input with, _particularly _not after being awake half the night in a cold sweat breaking down intermittently against his mom as he desperately tried to convince himself that the nightmare wasn’t real, but he couldn’t deny the rush of affection at seeing Tommy, smiling at him, clearly _ecstatic _to see him.

“_Jesus, _man, it’s so good to see you!” Tommy pulled him into the briefest one-armed hug Steve had ever encountered, breaking it before Steve had a chance to reciprocate. “I mean – I’ve been trying to call – so has Carol – but your mom keeps saying you’re not really up to it – I mean – I can kind of see why… No offence, Steve, but you look like shit.”

Steve didn’t quite know what to say to that, so he gave a half-shrug as his brain caught up with all the information Tommy had just dumped on him.

“Hang on – you’ve been trying to _call?_” Steve frowned slightly.

“_Yeah_, man, I mean – you came back from the _dead. _I kind of wanted to _talk _to you. Did your – did your mom not _tell _you?”

Steve shook his head numbly. It hadn’t even _occurred _to him that people might be trying to reach him – Tommy, Carol – _who else?_

“My mom and dad told me to let them handle any phone calls,” Steve shrugged. “Apparently a load of reporters have been trying to get hold of me-”

“Oh _god, _yeah, I know,” Tommy sighed, rolling his eyes. “Apparently, they were camped outside the school last week – I heard Byers punched a reporter, it was _crazy…_”

This particular nugget of news had completely passed him by. “Wait – _what?_”

“Oh _God – _yeah – it was, like, his first day back at school or something – your bitch of an ex was there, too-”

“Hey – don’t call her that,” Steve felt a flash of anger spark inside him at the insult – all the reasons he’d fallen out with Tommy in the first place suddenly surged to the forefront of his mind.

Tommy froze, a slightly hurt expression on his face. “Dude… she ran off with Byers less than a _day _after dumping you-”

“Tommy – look – I’m sorry, but I – I can’t really deal with this right now – I’ve got to-” he turned around, handing an eternally patient Donald a twenty for the nightlight, picking up the box and not even bothering with the change as he moved towards the door. It could go towards repairing the window Steve and Billy had smashed.

“_Okay – _okay, look, man, I’m sorry – I’m sorry,” Tommy reached out a hand as he moved backwards, his voice slightly desperate. “Just… _shit happened _while you were gone – and – well, I’ve been having a hard time looking at Wheeler as anything other than the b- the _girl_ that keeps leaving you.”

Steve didn’t miss the way Tommy caught himself, trying to avoid the insult, stepping past Tommy and out the door before another word caught his attention.

“Wait – what do you mean _‘keeps _leaving me?’”

Tommy looked caught out by Steve’s lack of knowledge, a confused expression on his face. “Well, she… she walked out of your funeral – she walked out of a speech your dad gave at a memorial thing at school – she dumped you at Halloween – she left you at _Starcourt – _she and Byers – they got out because of _you, _Steve – and they just _left you there to die – _and I-”

Tommy broke off, taking a deep breath as Steve was left completely bewildered by what Tommy had just dropped in his lap – _she’d walked out of his funeral – she’d supposedly left him at Starcourt – he was supposedly the reason they’d escaped?_

He needed to get the official Starcourt cover story from someone.

Tommy looked at Steve sadly. “I lost both my _best friends _in Starcourt,” he said. “You weren’t here afterwards – you don’t know what it was _like _– everyone had lost _someone_, but… it was _hard, _man. It was _really _hard. And Wheeler – she was being _so fucking self-righteous _about everything – like _she _was the only person who could _possibly _be upset – and…”

Tommy sighed heavily. “I took it too far,” he muttered. “Played a prank on her at Halloween – ended up getting my ass handed to me by Byers, too. And – well – turns out the courts saw it as less of a prank and more of an assault, so that and a load of weed in the car meant that I got a shit ton of community service. I’m still doing it, you know?”

He gave a weak chuckle as Steve tried to decipher the exact meaning of what Tommy had just said. _Assault? What the hell had _happened _while he was gone?_

Apparently, his face looked a picture as Tommy rushed to explain.

“I – uh – I might have thrown a bucket of animal blood on her,” Tommy stammered. “You know – like in that _Carrie _movie. It probably didn’t help that she was the second person I’d played that prank on. The Mayor had taken a load of bribes to cover up some problems in the Starcourt design. He ended up going to jail – last I heard, he killed himself or something – but his wife was still living the high life on all that fucking _blood money _– and _yeah_, you know – I was _angry. _And I was angry that Wheeler and Byers got their happy ending after you – after I thought you’d _died _to save them or something – after I lost both my best friends – and it wasn’t – it wasn’t fucking _fair, _man. And _yeah, _I get that I took it too far _now, _but she wasn’t exactly the whole _‘Little Miss Perfect’ _she was pretending to be.”

Steve was rendered momentarily speechless, his mind in freefall as he struggled to process everything that Tommy had just said. _Tommy had attacked Nancy at Halloween – he’d got it in his head that they were somehow responsible for what had happened – and _Mayor Kline_ had been wrapped up in the wrong side of Starcourt – his dad’s Mayoral campaign made a hell of a lot more sense, he remembered Kline as one of his dad’s more important friends, loud and charismatic at dinner parties – hell, Kline had bought him a _birthday present _when he was eight – and now he was _dead – _and Tommy had gone after Winnie Kline, too – and Nancy – because Tommy had it in his head that Nancy and Jonathan had left him to _die…

“Tommy…” Steve finally managed, his voice sounding slightly hoarse. “That’s – that’s not how it happened. Nancy didn’t _leave_ me in Starcourt. I don’t – I don’t know what you think you know, but – but I can tell you – that’s not what happened.”

Tommy just about managed to hide the worst of the surprise behind a blank expression, his lips parting slightly as his mouth went slack. Steve sighed slightly, his expression softening as he unlocked his car, chucking the nightlight over into the back seat. Tommy had never been particularly good at accepting when he was wrong, intellectually or morally. He was always so _certain _about everything – Steve vividly remembered him falling out with Carol in seventh grade after a blazing row about whether or not some utterly irrelevant actor was still dating some irrelevant actress, only for Carol to vanish for five minutes to return brandishing the magazine that provided the evidence that she’d been right about their breakup. Steve, who had neither offered his opinion nor indeed cared about the ultimate outcome, had simply ended up following Tommy around as he ranted nonstop about her for the next half hour until he’d finally calmed down. Steve _really _couldn’t deal with another tantrum like that – not now, at least. He went to climb into the car –

“I’m sorry.”

Steve froze, a hand on the top of the car door as he looked over at Tommy.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy repeated softly. “I – I didn’t know. I had no idea what happened. I just – there were all these rumours going around, and – and nobody who was _there _would talk about it. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I – I get that now.”

Steve tried to keep his expression neutral as he gave a small shrug.

“It’s not _me _you should be-”

“I’ll apologise to Wheeler as well,” Tommy started towards him. “And – and Byers. Just… you have no idea how good it is that you’re home. And – _fuck _– I want things to be _good _between us. You know – like _before._”

Steve’s eyes fell shut at his words, the naivete of the sentiment like a lance through his chest. Before – _when? _Before Starcourt? Things hadn’t exactly been _good _then. Despite the fact that things between them had been _improving, _to say that they’d become _best friends _like Tommy clearly thought they were was much more of a construct of imagination. No – _‘before’_ had a different meaning – before – before _Nancy. _And things were _never _going to be like that again. And Steve didn’t _want _them to be.

“Tommy…” he sighed. “Nothing’s going to be like before-”

“But they can still be _good, _can’t they?” Tommy asked hopefully, that same desperation shining in his eyes. “I _know _shit’s happened – I know shit’s happened to _you _– but that doesn’t mean things can’t be _good. _And – I _want _things to be good, man. I got my _best friends _back. I _want _that to be a _good _thing. Not… not bogged down with crap that happened when things were _shit._”

Steve looked at him searchingly, the earnest light shining behind the tentative smile. Steve bit his lip, sighing and shaking his head.

“Maybe,” he finally relented. “But you’ve got to make things right with Nancy. I didn’t – I didn’t want you to _do _that.”

There was a flash of hurt in Tommy’s eyes that vanished as he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay – I can do that.”

Steve gave him a tight smile, nodding before turning to get back into his car as Tommy pulled his jacket tighter around him.

“Hang on,” Steve froze. “Where’s your car?”

Tommy gave a slightly guilty smile. “My – uh – my old man confiscated it when I got community service,” he explained nervously. “Lent it to my uncle. I usually borrow Dad’s, but – well – he’s using it today. So I guess I’m walking.”

Steve sighed, knowing he was going to regret this immediately but that he would offer nonetheless out of sheer habit. “Where are you heading? I can probably drive you if it’s not too far out.”

Tommy grinned – a proper grin, not the nervous smiles he’d been giving Steve so far. “Just out to Eighth. You sure that’s okay?”

Steve couldn’t help but sigh exasperatedly, rolling his eyes. “You’ve never had a problem using me as a personal taxi service before.”

Tommy snorted as he opened the passenger door. “Yeah, well, you’ve never just _come back from the_ _dead _before – maybe I’m starting to give a shit about you.”

The smell of pine air freshener that Steve hadn’t quite managed to get rid of from when his mom was using the car tickled Steve’s nose as Tommy frowned at the smell.

“Don’t ask,” Steve said flatly, seeing the querying look in his eyes before changing the subject away from him. “Anyway – you said something about Jonathan _punching a reporter?_”

“_Oh my god – _yeah – so apparently there have been a load of reporters camped out the school and one of them recognised Wheeler from that internship she did with Byers. Anyway, they knew she was your ex and I think they started trying to get her to get some kind of interview with you – you know, they’re getting pretty desperate – and Wheeler apparently lost her shit at them, and Byers tried to get her away and then this guy starts trying to ask _him _about it and from what I hear, he just turned around and broke his nose.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up at the thought of _Jonathan _getting that wound up by a reporter. _Nancy, _he had no trouble believing it of, but _Jonathan _was something else. He made a mental note to ask Jonathan about it later along with the four hundred other questions he now had from his brief conversation with Tommy. “What happened? Did they call the police or something?”

Tommy snorted with laughter. “_What _police?” he asked derisively. “Most of the police quit after the night you were found – apparently a load of them ran into some Soviets or something and about half the force got _killed _– great news for your dad, he just _hired _half of them in some big scheme – I mean, it was fucking _crazy, _to tell you the truth – the whole thing feels like a _movie_. I mean, _seriously – _Soviet invasions? _Here?_ And – and…”

Tommy broke off, his excited smile fading as he looked over at Steve nervously.

“Sorry, but I’ve got to ask – were you and Billy _really _in Russia?”

A twist of anxiety knotted in his stomach as he nodded tightly. Tommy’s eyes went wide at the confirmation.

“But – but _why?_” Tommy asked. “I mean – why did they take you guys?”

Steve’s head spun as he turned onto Eighth Street, searching for an adequate response with a long exhale.

“You know, Tommy,” he muttered. “I’ve been asking myself that same question for the last eight months.”

Tommy, for all his lack of tact, did at last seem to demonstrate some understanding that the topic might be sensitive for Steve and didn’t press the matter. Steve was honestly relieved when he pulled up in an empty parking spot.

“You know, man, it’s _really _good to see you,” Tommy said seriously, a smile spreading across his face. “You should call Carol when you get a chance – she’s trying to find a good time to come back to Hawkins. I can give you her number. Oh – and at some point, we need to talk about your Welcome Back Party-”

That brought Steve up short.

“_What?_”

Steve’s head swivelled around, panic shooting through him. The idea of a _party – _a house full of drunken people there to celebrate the single worst experience of Steve’s life – a night of fielding questions much like Tommy’s own questions in the car – often coming without even half the tact that Tommy had demonstrated – made him feel physically sick.

“No – no – Tommy, I don’t want a party-”

“Come _on, _Steve, it’ll be _fun,_” Tommy protested. “It doesn’t have to be right away – we need Billy there, too-”

Steve’s chest felt a size too small for his lungs at Tommy’s optimism about Billy’s condition. While it was true that the doctors themselves were getting more positive about his prospects, they had still made it very clear that things could still go very wrong – the prospect of an infection was terrifyingly real, and Steve didn’t let that ember of hope ignite into anything stronger. He didn’t think he _would _until Billy was awake.

“Tommy, I mean it, I _really _don’t want a party,” Steve said in a voice he hoped shook slightly less than he thought. “I can’t drink – I can’t really smoke – and Billy’s probably going to be even _worse. _I just – I just don’t really want a _party _after everything.”

It felt fundamentally wrong to be planning Billy’s future for him when it was still so uncertain whether Billy would even _have _one. Tommy gave him a slightly disappointed smile as he opened the door. “Will you at least _think _about it?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Fine – _yes _– I’ll _think _about it,” he sighed. “But I’m not going to change my mind.”

Tommy’s smile widened victoriously as he clambered out of the car, a hand resting on the door. “Awesome. And Steve?”

Steve looked at him as Tommy’s face softened into something more sincere.

“Look after yourself. And – and Billy, too.”

Steve finally managed a smile that came naturally. “Thanks, Tommy.”

The door swung shut as Tommy walked away from the car with a small wave and a bounce in his step. Steve watched him go before sighing and driving the rest of the way to the hospital.

-:-

That day also marked the day that Steve tried speaking to Max for the first time.

He stumbled into Billy’s room almost twenty minutes after he usually arrived, with a muttered apology about being late – sheer habit had seen him arriving at Billy’s hospital room at the same time every day as Steve found a routine that couldn’t be broken. _Routines_ couldn’t be broken. When he followed a routine – when he _could _follow a routine – that generally meant that things were normal. So his day, structured around the mealtimes that he now followed to the letter dictated by the sheets of paper that Owens kept updated every week, followed the same routine. _Just like his days in Russia. _Get up, have a shower, have breakfast, go and see Billy. It was a _simple _routine. He usually had warnings of the deviations – like his own doctor’s appointment. He could _manage _that. But that morning – running into Tommy, giving him a lift – it only hit him afterwards that he’d _broken _the routine. _He’d _broken the routine. And when the routine was broken – _when he was taken out of the workshop – when he was taken from his cell at night – when Billy was taken away from him at any point – _that inevitably meant something _bad _was about to happen.

And on that day, he’d broken that routine.

Whatever bad thing was coming was on _him._

So he’d hurried through the halls of the hospital, not even noticing the way his breath was coming in short, sharp gasps, he’d stumbled through the door with a desperation to get the routine _back on track, _to _stop _whatever inevitable awfulness was coming, until he finally burst through the door to Billy’s room, not even stopping to knock.

He usually knocked.

Max gave a surprised jump as the door had swung open, spinning around to look at him as he’d taken in the scene – Billy lying exactly where Steve had expected him to be, the heart monitor still beeping away. The doctors had taken the tube from his mouth a few days prior and replaced it with a nasal cannula. He looked exactly the same as he had done the previous day.

_Nothing bad had happened._

Steve still couldn’t help but gasp out apologies. They tumbled from his lips as relief crashed over him – apologies to Billy – to _Max, _who did not need Steve to be the cause of any more hurt to her brother – his voice a desperate, quiet plea as he repeated the same mantra, taking Billy’s hand in his own and pressing his forehead against it as he struggled to get his breathing under control.

_In… two… three… and out… two… three…_

He could practically hear Billy’s voice counting in his head.

He hadn’t even noticed that he’d closed his eyes until he opened them, his head still bowed over Billy’s hand as he held it in both his own. It was only then that he’d broken the unspoken agreement he’d come to with Max – _as though there was another way to come to it – _not to talk to each other, not to encroach on each other’s times with Billy. They were there for Billy, both separately. He didn’t push her to talk, and she didn’t give him the condemnation he was expecting. He looked over nervously at her to find her watching him. She gave him a long, unreadable look as Steve was held still under her gaze, blue eyes boring into him until she finally released him, turning back to Billy silently as Steve let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

It was the first time she’d met his eyes since he’d set fire to her brother.

-:-

It was another few days before she spoke to him.

The day had its own set of distinct markers. Steve had another check-up, where his diet was changed to something more substantial, and the day also had the far smaller and altogether more significant landmark of being the first time Owens used the phrase _‘when he wakes up’ _as opposed to _‘if he wakes up’_ when talking about Billy.

Both Steve and Max noticed it, the tiny change in wording that could have been a slip of the tongue as Owens explained the now-daily reminder of the ever-present risk of infection while giving Max and her mom – _and Steve, by virtue of nobody asking him to leave – _an update on the state of Billy’s condition in the evening. Nobody picked Owens up on it, nobody asked him whether that was an intentional word choice or just an accident, and Owens didn’t correct himself. So the word hung in the air, unnoticed by Susan Mayfield or Sam Owens as Owens asked Susan if they could speak quietly outside.

Steve and Max sat there in their ever-uncomfortable chairs as Steve took Billy’s hand again. He’d made a point of not holding his hand whenever Susan Mayfield was present, lest she share the same opinion of homosexuality as her – _husband? Ex-husband? Steve wasn’t quite sure of her marital status. _But the silence that hung between them felt different, electrified by that one, single, inconspicuous, ever-important word.

_When…_

“I want to hate you.”

Steve startled at the noise – the ragged voice of Max, rubbed raw and hoarse by tears she wouldn’t allow Steve to see. Steve looked over at her, eyes wide at the condemnation she finally flung at him.

“I don’t blame you,” Steve finally muttered when Max made no further move to speak.

She shook her head, closing her eyes as she squeezed Billy’s hand harder.

“I _want _to,” she breathed. “_God – _after watching what you _did _to him… but-”

She broke off, her eyes getting red as tears started to escape. Steve swallowed, that flash of hope at the single word that hung in the air daring to get brighter.

“I can’t,” she finally gasped, her voice getting, if possible, even quieter. “I can’t bring myself to hate you. I get it.”

Steve really didn’t know what to say to that, turning away from Max and back to Billy’s hands as he focused on interlacing his fingers with his own –

“I heard you, you know,” she finally turned to him.

He met her eyes, the blue depths shining bright, rimmed with red tears.

“What you said to him,” she clarified. “About – about _‘the man you love’ _or something. I heard it.”

Steve swallowed, his eyes wide as he didn’t dare break his silence – didn’t dare to confirm or deny it.

“I know what Billy is,” she muttered. “I know – I know _how _he is. His dad used to call him that all the time – for a while I didn’t think there was any truth in it – just another insult or something – but eventually, it started to make _sense. _And when you said _that_, it made sense of – of _you._ Of _both _of you when you came home.”

She looked pointedly at Billy’s hand, wound around Steve’s own in a farce, a crude replication of the real thing, an artificial construction of Steve’s design created with all the ability of _anything_ Steve tried to create on his own – weak, fake, _wrong. _Steve unlaced his fingers from between Billy’s slowly, relishing the last touch of Billy before Max finally destroyed his dream once and for all –

“I don’t mind,” she continued. She turned back to look at Billy’s face. “You have – you have _no idea _how different he was when he showed up with you. Even though everything was so _awful – _even though we were running for our lives and hiding out in a storm cellar – he was different. He was – he was _happy. _And Lucas – he told me what Billy said to him. Billy _apologised. _For – for everything – for the way he’d treated him – for the way his _dad _was – for the way _he _saw Lucas and his mom and dad. It’s like he’s been a different person – the person he _could _have been if he hadn’t been with _Neil. _And _that… _that’s all _you, _Steve.”

Steve was floored. He closed his eyes, a rush in his chest as a smile spread across his face, uncaring of the tightness in his chest, of the reluctance or all the reasons that Steve had _not _to smile. He thought back to the Billy he had first encountered in the Upside Down – all barbed comments and derision. He thought back to the Billy he had known before then, checking him a little too hard in basketball, the Billy that the coach couldn’t put on the same team as him because neither Steve nor Billy were prepared to play well with each other unless they _absolutely had to _in a game_ ­_– and even then, it was a tenuous definition of ‘playing _together_’ – the Billy that had given him a concussion and landed him in hospital. The difference between _that_ Billy and the Billy Steve had come to rely on so much – _arguably too much _– was astonishing, even for Steve, who had had months to get used to it. He’d never even considered Max’s perspective.

“I always hoped Billy could be like that,” Max muttered, the ghost of a smile appearing on her face. “Given half a chance. He was better back in California – or at least, not as shit as he was _here_. He tried to look out for me. He tried to _give _a shit. And he – _God, _even though things were _shit _with him – even though _he _was shit – he didn’t deserve that _thing. _He _never _deserved that thing.”

Steve shook his head, his voice cracking as he finally found it. “No, he – he _didn’t._”

“There were a lot of things he didn’t deserve,” Max muttered hoarsely. “The Mind Flayer. His dad. His mom leaving. But just – just seeing him over those few days when _I got him back… _It makes me wonder what he would have been like if someone had given a shit about him all along.”

Steve couldn’t even speak past the lump in his throat, trying several times to swallow but failing miserably. When words altogether failed, tears sprang into his eyes as he looked over at Max.

“I never wanted to do this to him, Max,” Steve gasped, his voice surprisingly steady as he turned wide eyes towards her, not even allowing himself to blink as he looked imploringly over at her. “You have to know that – I-”

“I do,” she said, turning back to him and meeting his eyes as the ghost of a smile pulled the corners of her mouth upwards. “I saw how hard it was for you. How hard _everything’s _been for you. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. I can’t imagine what was going through your head then. And… and I know there wasn’t really another way.”

Steve finally succeeded in swallowing as she got up from her chair and walked around the bed to the other side where Steve still sat. She slipped an arm around his shoulder, letting him reciprocate the hug as she crouched down beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “For bringing him home.”

-:-

Steve bore witness to a blazing row whispered by the door of Billy’s room when Max’s mom decided that almost two weeks off school was enough, given that Billy’s team of doctors were now using the word _‘when’ _to talk about improvements in Billy’s condition on a regular basis. While Susan had gone back to work a few days after the Lab’s destruction, satisfied that her daughter was safe and that the best thing for her was to stay with Billy, Max wasn’t prepared to take _any _chances with missing any update, good or bad, with Billy’s condition. Which was how they got to Max very loudly hissing that she couldn’t go back to school with Billy still in the state he was, how things could still change at any moment, explaining the very real fear she had that she could leave and come back to Billy gone forever. It was not the first time this had come up – they had had a very similar argument when her mom wanted her to go home and sleep.

Max lost this argument in much the same way.

She was dreading going back to school as she pulled on a hoodie and jeans, skateboard next to her as she sat next to her mom, the car pulling up into the parking lot with a soft _‘have a good day, honey’_ as Max sullenly got out of the car.

She tried extremely hard to ignore all the extremely obvious stares cast in her general direction as she went over to her locker, internally groaning at the mountain of catch-up homework that she still hadn’t done, dropped over to her house every night by Lucas. She _hoped _that if the worst came to the worst, she could play the _‘my-stepbrother-came-back-from-the-dead-and-is-in-hospital-fighting-for-his-life-and-I-got-kidnapped-and-spent-a-day-running-from-Russians’ _card with maybe a few tears thrown in for good measure. It would remain the best excuse she’d ever have for not doing her homework throughout her education.

Fortunately, her teachers seemed to have anticipated this particular shortfall in her education, giving her the occasional disgustingly patronising smile at her blank looks as she struggled to understand half of what was being said in first and second period. Their English teacher held her back briefly after class with a desperately pitying look that Max _really_ wanted to punch, softly saying how rough it must have been, and if she needed _any _help at all to catch up, all she needed to do was ask.

She stepped out of the classroom to Dustin waiting for her by the drinking fountain. _Alone._

“Hey,” he muttered awkwardly, a slightly strained smile on his face.

Max really didn’t know how to feel about Dustin – she couldn’t ignore the months of name-calling, the months of clear hatred and ostracization on his part, but something had very definitely shifted between them in light of Steve and Billy’s return. She didn’t remember _much _of that night after she and Billy had been separated in the hospital, but she _did _remember flashes of Lucas holding her on a hospital bed, of Dustin approaching a few times, of a comforting hand reached out for her to take if she wanted. She even remembered taking it.

“Hey,” she muttered back, her tone much the same as his but not bothering with the smile.

“Can we – can we _talk?_”

She gave Dustin a scrutinising look as he gave her a small smile, trying to show that he didn’t want to hurt her, or cut her down, or otherwise attack her in the same way that had happened any time the two had shared the space since Starcourt. The peace offering of waiting with her for news hung very much at the forefront of both their minds, the hand extended out for her to take as he _hoped _that she would understand that something had changed.

That he at last _understood._

He thought back on those few moments, sitting in the car as the news came through that Hopper and Joyce had stayed behind as the Gate had closed. The words that had shattered worlds – had shattered Dustin’s own perceptions.

_“They stayed behind. They closed the Gate.”_

He had realised in those few moments the complete sense of loss that had shattered Max’s life after Starcourt. Mrs Byers and the Chief – they had always been the _adults _– the people who had _known _– who were _on their side no matter what. _They had been the ones to reach out to Dustin, Mike and Lucas in ’83, to take the responsibility for El away from solely them, to look after them, to make them feel less _alone, _less out of their depth. To lose them – to face the prospect of them trapped in a place that had left two of Dustin’s best friends _destroyed, _having to rebuild their lives in a new image afterwards, to make the decision to _leave _them had been impossible. He’d finally understood what had driven Max to do _whatever it took, _to risk _everything _to get them back because _Dustin couldn’t leave them. _Dustin couldn’t watch Jonathan and Will and El mourn the loss of two good people, two people who had become _family _to him through circumstances that had left them as the only two _adults _– actual, real, proper _adults _– that Dustin could talk to about certain things. Hopper had helped Dustin after losing Steve when nobody else could with a few words and sorting out something that only he could, because only _he _knew. Mrs Byers and Chief Hopper had become family to Dustin almost as much as they had been family to Will and Jonathan and El. And he couldn’t leave family behind. He couldn’t put Will, El and Jonathan through that.

So when Mike had looked over to him in the back of the car that night, wordlessly asking for his permission to go ahead with the insane plan of opening the Gate, Dustin couldn’t deny them. Because there _was _no choice. He couldn’t leave them behind. Not after everything.

And he’d finally understood why Max had been so unwilling to leave Billy behind – and he’d been forced to question why he’d been so ready to let _her _go through something that he couldn’t bear to let Will and El and Jonathan go through. He’d finally looked at her life as it was – she’d made the decision to put Billy in the Upside Down as a placeholder for getting the Mind Flayer out of him safely, only to have that plan abandoned by the _adults _in the room who had weighed up the risk of getting Billy back and decided that it was _safer _to leave him to die. Now that Dustin looked on it with a much less critical eye, a much more _empathetic _eye, it had become painfully apparent why, in the face of that, she had kept her plan a secret.

And now that he _understood, _he wanted to make things _right._

Max gave him a scrutinising look but followed him outside to a quiet spot near the parking lot under a covered walkway to the gym block.

“Max, I – I just wanted to say – I – I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “For – for how I’ve been. I know we fell out but – I shouldn’t have been such a dick about it. I was – I was an _asshole_.”

Max let out a soft breath, looking at the ground. A flush ran up to her face as her mind went back to that day on the hilltop, hearing words spat at her in the rain, words about how she’d messed up her own life through the simple act of caring about Billy ringing in her ears. Not for the first time, she felt the anger flare up that had led her to the decision to let that friendship die. To kill it herself if she needed to.

“Yeah,” she finally muttered. “You were.”

Dustin’s breath hitched in his throat as he felt it flutter in his chest, like a butterfly battering itself against a window, forgetting the way out.

“You were – you were right,” he continued desperately. “I was – I was upset – I was angry – I thought Steve was _gone _and – and I wasn’t _dealing _with it. And I was – I was also… _son of a bitch, _this sounds so stupid now, but…”

He ran a hand up and messed it into his curls. “I was… I was kind of… I don’t know – I was _jealous, _kind of. Sort of. I don’t know.”

Her eyebrows shot up. Of all the things she had expected Dustin to say, that was the _last _thing on the list.

“I _know _– I know, it’s stupid, but…” he muttered. “But you had a way to _get Billy back. _I would have – I would have given _anything _to get Steve back – but there wasn’t a way I had – and so when _you _were trying to do your things, I guess it kind of brought everything back to the surface – and _yeah, _all the guilt I had – because you were _right _about that – and – and it wasn’t _fair. _And – and I know it wasn’t something to be _jealous _of – I mean – being possessed by a murderous mind-controlling monster from another dimension isn’t exactly _ideal, _but – but I thought I was _never _going to get Steve back, and you still had a way of saving Billy, so – so _yeah _– I was _jealous_ of that. And it wasn’t until we all but lost Mrs Byers and Chief Hopper that I – that I _got it. _It was really easy for me to _say_ I’d _never _do something like that – that it was really stupid and risking everything – but now – in hindsight – I think I probably _would _have done something like that if I’d known Steve was out there. And I’m – I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time about doing that for Billy.”

Max’s anger flared up but died again almost immediately. Any thought of a fight vanished in a wave of exhaustion. She felt so wrung out, so _tired _from being worried about Billy for so long that she didn’t have the energy to maintain that burning fire of anger and hate. She couldn’t ignore the honesty, the candid way that he was laying his reasons out, as unreasonable as they were, with a sincere apology for his part in why things had gone as far as they had. She couldn’t bring herself to ignore the truth in his original objection like she had done for so long with the denial that _nobody understood her side of the story. _Dustin _did _understand her side now. And he had forgiven her for it.

“Thanks,” she muttered. “But – you were right, too. It – it _was _stupid. It was dangerous – and _risky _– and I wasn’t thinking about you – or Steve – or Will – or _anyone, _really. I just – I wanted _Billy_ back. And…and I _did _put you all at risk. And I _never _should have done that – not without talking to you guys, at least. I just – I didn’t want to _hear _it. I _knew _you guys wouldn’t like it, and – I didn’t want to _hear _it. And – I’m sorry. And I shouldn’t have said what I said – about what happened to Steve being your fault. It – it _wasn’t._”

Dustin smiled – a strange, thoughtful smile that didn’t entirely suit her image of him. He looked up and to one side, nodding slightly.

“I know,” he muttered, looking surprised by the revelation himself. “I – I _know._”

He suddenly shook his head, the smile falling from his face as he looked back at Max. “And – what I said about Billy being your fault – and you being the reason everything went wrong for you – that wasn’t true, either. And I’m sorry. I was angry – and I was wrong. You – you _saved _him.”

She smiled sadly, looking down at the floor. “Thanks.”

Dustin looked at the floor, giving her a shy smile. She returned it, looking up slightly and meeting his eyes.

“But we got them _back,_” her smile spread wider across her face as tears sprang into her eyes. “We got them _both _back.”

Dustin’s smile spread into the unabashed, unrestrained smile that showed off his teeth as he grinned at her eagerly.

“We did,” he smiled, a slightly hysterical bubble of laughter coming from his lips. “I can’t even _believe _it.”

His smile dimmed slightly as he suddenly looked over at Max, noticing the tears in her eyes as he suddenly realised that it wasn’t as _over _for her as it was for him. He looked at her with wide eyes.

“How’s – how’s Billy doing?”

She pulled her mouth into a forced smile, looking up at him with shining eyes as she tried to inject something positive into her voice.

“He’s – he’s better,” she explained. “It’s still not – not _certain _– the doctors say that things could still go wrong – he could get an infection or something – but they’re – they’re using the word _‘when’ _about him now, which is good…”

She gave a very forced laugh that by the look on Dustin’s face was as unconvincing as it sounded. He gave his own slightly pained smile that did nothing to rid the sadness from his eyes.

“He’s – he’s going to be okay,” she said, slightly forcefully, as though if she said it with enough certainty it might become true. “He came back _once – _he can do it again.”

Dustin’s smile widened into something a little less pained, but it still didn’t touch his eyes. “He’s a fighter,” he said. “That’s something we _always_ knew about him.”

She gave a soft laugh, turning away as she wiped away the tears on her face with the back of her hand. “Yeah…” she muttered. “And he _knows _if he lets this thing win that I’ll kick his ass myself.”

Dustin gave a soft laugh as he looked down. “I still remember you threatening him with that _bat,_” he laughed. “Honestly, I was – I was kind of _terrified _of you then. I mean – it was _awesome – _and I was glad you were on _our_ side – but I was also a _little bit _scared of you then…”

She laughed. “Yeah – you _should _be scared of me,” she grinned. “At all times.”

“I mean, you _did _punch me in the face,” Dustin shrugged, grinning. “Twice.”

Max winced. She’d forgotten about that. “Sorry…”

Dustin shook his head. “It’s – it’s okay,” he said. “I wasn’t – I wasn’t exactly a gentleman myself, and – and it kind of seems insignificant now…”

“Yeah, stopping interdimensional Russian invasions together with my dead stepbrother and your dead best friend does _kind of _put things into perspective a bit, doesn’t it?”

Dustin snorted with laughter, his face creasing as he split into an enormous smile, his eyes lighting up.

“Also, for the record, you’ve _never _been a gentleman,” Max added.

Dustin pulled a face of mock outrage. “How could you _suggest _such a thing?” he put on a terrible affected accent in an altogether failed attempt to sound posh. “I’ll have you know I’m _always _a gentleman.”

Max gave him an extremely sceptical look.

“Well, _since _you seem to require proof of my gentlemanly ways,” he said, still keeping up the ridiculous accent, “I have noticed that you haven’t gotten around to catching up on what you missed, and I could offer my _tutelage _to you.”

Max’s sceptical look began to crack as her eyebrows pulled together and upwards at the antics that didn’t seem to show any sign of stopping.

“_‘Tutelage’?_” she echoed, her voice shaking slightly with suppressed laughter. “_Really?_”

“Indeed, milady,” he did a ridiculously over-the-top bow, hand flourishing in a twirl that probably would have worked slightly better with a hat. “I’ll have you know that I’m top of almost every class.”

This, at last, broke Max, sending her snorting with laughter. “Of course you are, you _nerd,_” she giggled.

“And proud of it,” Dustin finally dropped the affected accent, grinning at her. “So – do you _want _my help? The offer’s there.”

She grinned with a roll of the eyes. “_Maybe,_” she said. “I’ll see how much mileage the _brother-coming-back-from-the-dead _thing has. And also how lost I am in Chem today. But – but _thank you, _Dustin. I… I appreciate it.”

He smiled – a carefree smile that lit up the immediate vicinity. “Shall we – shall we go find the others?”

Max immediately felt hesitant, her eyes falling to the ground as she thought of Mike – of Lucas – of Will – just because _Dustin _had forgiven her did not mean that she was likely to be welcomed back with open arms – she remembered particularly vividly Mike spitting across the room, _‘she’s out of the Party, Dustin, we all agreed-’_

“What about the others? Will they mind? I mean, Mike seemed-”

Dustin snorted derisively. “Mike’s _Mike. _He’s too busy making fresh lovey-dovey eyes at El to notice anyone else at this point.”

Max tilted her head sideways in acknowledgement of that. “But what about-”

“The others want to see you,” Dustin said, his tone oddly serious. “I mean, if it weren’t for the armed guards and the fact that his mom has grounded him until next century, I’m pretty sure Lucas would have tried to come to the hospital to check up on you.”

“His mom _grounded _him?” Max asked incredulously. “For running away from evil Russians?”

Dustin shrugged, leading the way towards the parking lot. “That’s _nothing. _Mike’s mom grounded them for about a year _and_ banned both him and Nancy from talking to Mrs Byers and the Chief or going around to their houses or having anything to do with them _at all, _really.”

Max let out a low whistle. “_Shit,_” she breathed. “That must do _wonders _for their relationships. And isn’t Will, like, Mike’s best friend?”

“Oh my _God, _tell me about it,” Dustin groaned. “The radio has been blowing up non-stop with Mike complaining after school about how totally unfair it is. I mean, I _get _it, but also – like – his mom apparently took it really hard. Blames Mrs Byers and Hopper for _everything. _She’s… she’s really angry.”

Max raised her eyebrows. “That’s… new,” she murmured. “_My _mom has basically started _hero-worshipping _Chief Hopper for bringing me back when she found out Russians were involved. And she’s been talking non-stop about how they saved me and brought Billy back somehow… What about _your _mom? How’s she been?”

Dustin shrugged. “She’s mostly just happy to have me home. And, I mean, she _loves _Steve, so she’s pretty relieved he’s okay, and she’s happy for me… Not sure what she thinks of Mrs Byers and the Chief at this stage, but she hasn’t banned me from seeing anyone yet.”

They rounded a corner to spot Mike, El, Will and _Lucas _standing by the front entrance, chatting about something that seemed to be sending Lucas into a ridiculous impression of something that Max was fairly certain she knew what it would be while Will laughed, a bright, carefree sound that lit up his face. Mike looked increasingly sullen and El’s face was hiding a slightly surprised, awkwardly concealed smile.

Sure enough, as they came into earshot, Lucas held the back of his hand up to his forehead with a simpering expression, his voice high and whiny as he said, “_Oh, El, you have no idea how hard it is to be parted from you. How I wish our families weren’t feuding. I swear, I would end this torment to be with you forever with poison if that is what it would take for us to be together, for I am the Juliet to your Romeo-_”

“Alright, that’s _enough,_” Mike snapped as Will burst out laughing, doubling over as he and Lucas were sent into fits of giggles. El laughed slightly less hard at the joke, the finer nuance of the last few words going over her head but mostly picking up on the gist. Mike, still not used to being the butt of the joke despite how often it happened, pouted sourly as Will picked up the impression.

“_And though we have only known each other a day and a half, I would die for you-_”

“Oh, _look, _Dustin’s back!” Mike all but snarled in Will’s general direction as Lucas wiped tears from his eyes from laughing so hard. Will finally dropped the impression, the laughter slowly easing from his face as he gave Dustin and Max a querying look. Max, however, grinned.

“No, don’t stop, I want to hear how it ends,” she gave Mike a mischievous grin.

“Yeah, it seems rather _Shakespearean, _doesn’t it?” Dustin matched Max’s tone.

This had Lucas doubling over again as he and Will erupted into laughter. El grinned at Dustin, a slightly confused look in her eyes that still shone with excitement at being part of the joke, but she had more pressing questions as she turned to Max.

“Are you… _friends _again?” she asked, finally putting a halt to the laughter as she looked from Max to Dustin. Max felt a wave of warmth rush through her as she looked towards Dustin, confirmation shining in his eyes as he grins at her.

“Yeah,” she breathed before she turned back to El. “Yeah – we – we made up.”

That was all that was needed – Dustin was clearly the catalyst – the piece of the puzzle that led Max back into the fold as El stepped forwards, flinging her arms around Max and Dustin’s shoulders. Max felt the air leave her body in a way that couldn’t entirely be attributed to the hug as her eyes went wider and she heard Dustin’s slightly irritable voice on the other side of El’s head.

“_Ow – _El – that’s my neck – you’re pulling my hair – El – that hurts – _ow_-”

“Yeah, El, put him down, you don’t know where he’s been,” Lucas cut in. “And believe me, if you _did, _you wouldn’t want to be that close.”

El extracted herself from the two of them as Dustin glared at Lucas, flipping him off as El beamed at them, an unabashed smile.

“_Happy,_” was all she said before melting back into Mike’s side, enjoying the hand wrapped around her. “We’re together.”

The warm rush of being back, being among her friends that she could at last call _friends _again, left Max feeling more content with herself than she had done in a very long time. It felt _right, _like the world was starting to realign – the Mind Flayer was _gone, _Billy and Steve were back, she had her friends back –

Lucas still looked awkward, though. He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at the floor. He suddenly looked nervous, hesitant, not entirely sure of himself. He had been the one constant in the flashes of memory she had of the aftermath of the Lab, holding her on the floor – in the ambulance – in the hospital bed –

“Hey,” she smiled to him. “I just – I wanted to say – uh – _thanks. _For – you know – staying with me – _then – _and – uh – and looking after me. It was – it was really nice of you.”

He looked up, giving her a half-smile, nervous, hesitant.

“You’re – uh – you’re welcome,” he muttered. “You – you okay now?”

She gave a small shrug. “_Better,_” she said. “I mean – it helps that Billy’s getting better.”

He smiled slightly, tension easing in his shoulders. “I mean – I know things went to shit between us – and I know things were hard – but – I still _care _about you, Max. I wasn’t going to leave you _alone _then.”

Max brought a hand up to her mouth to cover a smile, to cover the red rising to her cheeks as she felt a rush of affection in her chest. She was dimly aware of the four others gathered there, but they became insignificant, almost ghosts as she looked over at Lucas, who was still looking awkwardly at his feet.

“And – I was – I was thinking,” he stammered. “I know – I know things weren’t perfect – and things went wrong – but – but if you wanted to try again – you know – _us – _I mean – I wouldn’t mind – I wouldn’t-”

She grinned, her eyebrows raised as she looked at him.

“You _wouldn’t_ _mind?_” she echoed teasingly.

“Yeah – I mean – no – I mean-” he blurted out frantically, stumbling over words as he struggled to find the right sentiment. “I mean – I’d – I think I’d like to – I mean – I like – I mean – I like _you-_”

“Oh, for _God’s _sake, Max, just _kiss him _and get it over with,” Dustin crashed into their world that could have contained only Max and Lucas, announcing his presence with all the subtlety of a drunk rhinoceros.

She hesitated for a moment, watching as Lucas lifted his eyes to meet hers, something akin to hope shining there. She gave him a slightly questioning smile. He returned it and she closed the distance, pressing her lips against his, feeling the familiar way he reciprocated, his arms coming around her as they held each other close.

It felt like going home.

They pulled apart, beaming at each other. El was curled up against Mike’s side, an arm around her as she smiled at the pair. Will was looking at them with a fond, if slightly bored expression. Mike was _not _looking at them, looking instead down at El’s head on his shoulder, while Dustin watched them with disgusting smugness.

Fortunately, any comment about to be made was interrupted by a bell ringing loudly. Lucas offered out his hand in a way that Max was certain was his own attempt to be smooth but in Max’s opinion made him look like an idiot. Which was, if anything, even more endearing.

“Well, Byers, looks like we’re going to be partners in Chemistry today,” Dustin said to Will, looking extremely pointedly between the two couples walking hand in hand back into the school, but Max ignored him. She grinned at Lucas, taking in his smile as he looked over at her. She didn’t care what anyone said about her. She didn’t care about Troy Walsh muttering something to James Dante as they walked down the hall. She didn’t even care about the shocked look on Stacey Albright’s face as they walked into Chemistry together, and going by the look on Lucas’ face, neither did he.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys guys guys look I wrote a happy moment be proud of me!
> 
> I did want to have a moment of reconciliation among the Party because I couldn't bring myself to leave Max and Dustin at odds with each other and also Max and Lucas are ridiculously cute together (personally I prefer them to Mike and El but that's mostly because I have thoughts on Mike and El, for all her good qualities, is not the best person to help him grow out of his flaws, but that's another essay for another time.) Also I did want some Tommy and Steve stuff because I actually find Tommy to be a really fascinating character and I've had a great time playing around with him. (Fun fact: Tommy was originally going to play a much bigger part of the story, I had a plotline where he joined the police force and worked closely with Paul as his inside man and worked to uncover the whole conspiracy but I ended up abandoning it because I couldn't make it fit with the timeline without some SERIOUS yada yada-ing to get him through the police academy in time to be of any use.) 
> 
> Also for old readers - I've gone back and made some very minor tweaks to Part 4 Chapter 5 because I reread it and realised that despite it being one of the best received chapters (for obvious reasons,) it's also the single most badly-written chapter in the story so I went back and rectified some of the less well-written passages. Nothing catastrophic, there's a couple of word changes, I think I added a short paragraph in one of the action scenes, but it's still the same story, still the same plot, just slightly better written. But yes, if you go back and read it and wonder to yourself "oh, I don't remember this," that's why. (It's also fair to say I ran out of patience when writing it for the first time because again, obvious reasons...)


	57. Part 4 Chapter 22: Return Of The Kings

Steve was not entirely oblivious to the sudden re-emergence of certain people in Billy’s hospital room.

The sudden frequent presence of Lucas, Dustin, and (albeit less often) El, Will and Mike did not go unnoticed. Max would come by after school, usually arm in arm with Lucas, often with Dustin, occasionally with Dustin but _without _Lucas, and sometimes with some combination of the others was not a change that had passed Steve by.

Max and Dustin seemed to have made up, while Max and Lucas seemed to have gotten back together. The latter of these seemed to be entirely monumental to the others, but relatively insignificant to Steve. Despite being the one who had given Lucas the advice on how to win her back, (which Lucas had taken and, over the course of several break-ups, had formed into a bespoke strategy for winning back Maxine ‘Mad Max’ Mayfield, usually to the tune of flowers, cheap jewellery and chocolates in her locker,) Steve had frequently lost track over the months he’d spent shuttling the kids between school, the arcade and each other’s homes of whether Lucas and Max were together or not. There had been five (or quite possibly six) times where Max had dumped Lucas, with Steve on one occasion having altogether missed them getting back together until Lucas had been looking particularly dour in the back seat of the car, explaining that Max had dumped him the previous evening, leaving Steve blinking slightly as he’d _thought _that she had dumped him a month prior.

Billy’s room became a quiet hub of after-school activity where Max could curl up with Lucas, occasionally sending him out for snacks, or sit down with Dustin and catch up on school work. Either they’d changed the syllabus or else his teachers were worse than Dustin (or he was quite possibly listening to Dustin in a way that he hadn’t with his teachers) because he definitely didn’t remember large swathes of what Dustin was teaching Max. Steve would even go as far as saying that he might have learnt something.

The doctors were fairly confident in the stability of Billy’s condition, so leaving Billy alone proved to be much less of a chore as the days went by in a blur that had shocked Steve when someone announced it was nearly March. This, coupled with the sudden re-emergence of the kids, had Steve leaving the hospital slightly earlier, offering to give the kids a lift so Max could have some time alone with Billy before her mom would come by after work to pick her up and take her home. It was _comfortable _to slip back into his old role, driving the kids home, but there were some notable changes.

He’d been swept up in a hug by Claudia Henderson the first time he’d dropped Dustin home, leaving him gasping for breath as she practically sobbed on him about how happy she was that he was home, how awful what had happened to him was, how sorry she was that he had to go through that, how hard _‘Dusty-bun took it – oh, Steve, it was so terrible – I can’t even – your poor parents – oh, they must be _so _pleased you’re home…’ _It had taken Dustin practically dragging his mother off him at a critical moment just before the panic in Steve’s chest reached critical mass, where he would altogether lose any ability to communicate in a normal way. _‘Claudia’_, as she had reminded him when he’d called her _‘Mrs Henderson’_, had sent him on his way with several boxes of homemade cookies and reassurances that _‘if he ever needed anything at all, she would always be there for him.’ _

Mrs Byers invited him in with a warm smile when he’d first dropped Will back, which had led to what seemed to be an inversion of what had happened with Mrs Wheeler. While Joyce set about offering him everything he could ever want, from simply somewhere to sit down all the way up to spare furniture for his room, Steve had stood awkwardly in the doorway, one arm folded across his midriff and clutching his other elbow as he tried to avoid her eyes. She’d been prepared to _die _for him – to go into the Upside Down and stay there with Hopper, to leave behind her _kids, _to make that sacrifice so he could have a chance to _go home _without even a question. There was something about it that sat even _less _well with him than the idea of _Hopper _doing the same – perhaps it was that Hopper was the Chief of Police, that the possibility of death was something that _‘came with the territory,’ _or perhaps there was the fact that Steve had already had a chance to wrap his head around Hopper sacrificing himself, whereas Joyce had sprung it on _everyone, _her own children included, or perhaps it was simply that Joyce was a _mom, _had _always_ been a mom in Steve’s eyes, had made every decision she had done for her _kids, _and _Steve_ had been the reason for the one decision she’d made that had _not _been for them, that would have torn her kids’ lives apart if they’d let it. He was also left wondering what, if anything, Hopper had mentioned to her, or let slip, or hinted at about what Steve had revealed in his debriefing when she wrapped him up in a tight hug, thanking him quietly for looking after Will in a way that made Steve think that she wasn’t simply thanking him for bringing him home. He’d smiled at her tightly as he’d muttered out his own awkward thanks for what she had done for him and Billy in the Upside Down before Jonathan emerged and Steve conveniently remembered the bag of clothes in the trunk of his car that he needed to return.

Karen Wheeler’s own response to Steve was surprisingly awkward. He’d become aware of the complex interpersonal politics between Mrs Wheeler, Mrs Byers and Hopper, but that, coupled with the now-familiar awkwardness that came with the story that Steve had saved Nancy and Mike’s lives at Starcourt, the bewilderment that he had been in _Russia _for the last eight months, the guilt that had come with what had happened to him, and the worry that Karen Wheeler had been put through at the disappearance of Nancy and Mike before they were found had left her not entirely sure what to do with herself around Steve. She was flustered as he’d appeared at the door with Mike, not quite meeting his eyes as she flitted around the kitchen. Steve had been saved from the worst of the awkwardness by Nancy appearing at the top of the stairs, just as he’d always remembered her, a shy smile with so much care in her eyes as she gently slipped her arms around his shoulders and gave him a too-big smile, never asking _‘how he was doing’ _because she knew, like she’d always done, that any answer he gave was likely to be bullshit. She didn’t offer her own recipe of bullshit, either, no empty words of comfort, she simply brought him up to her room and asked him about Billy.

“You know,” Steve muttered. “The same.”

She smiled at him understandingly as she perched on the bed. Steve didn’t particularly want to elaborate on Billy’s condition, _because what more was there to say that hadn’t already been said? _Steve had blasted him with a flamethrower until he’d had a heart attack, causing the Mind Flayer to leave, his heart had altogether stopped until the paramedics had revived him, he’d gone through several rounds of surgery and had been lying in the hospital bed, completely unresponsive to the world ever since, and would continue to do so until he woke up or he got an infection which would most likely kill him. Nancy knew all this, Steve didn’t particularly want to talk about it for the seventeenth or eighteenth time that week, (which was probably not that far off the actual number even though it was only Tuesday,) so instead he ran a hand up through his hair.

“How’s – uh – how’s school going?”

Nancy rolled her eyes as she obligingly started talking about homework and English and Connor Morrison being an asshole towards her and Robin until Robin successfully managed to lodge a spitball in his ear through a dollar bill and got detention for it, alongside a lecture about how that stopped being funny in elementary school to which _Nancy _had responded with a comment about how it _absolutely was_ still funny, even in high school, complete with a detailed literary breakdown about how Shakespeare repeatedly used such childish antics to evoke humour, citing A Midsummer Night’s Dream as an example, which was a stroke of genius, given that the text was sitting open in front of everyone in the classroom. Unfortunately, this genius was not appreciated _quite _as much by the teacher as it was by Steve, and Nancy was now joining Robin in detention and had another week added to her grounding.

“So hang on,” Steve grinned. “A _dollar bill?_ Robin managed a shot like that through a _dollar bill?_”

“Yeah, it was… it was _really _impressive,” Nancy laughed.

“Damn,” Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “I should have hung out with her in middle school.”

Nancy snorted with laughter. “The mayhem you would have caused…”

The laughter faded as Steve ran a hand through his hair again, feeling it getting a little longer under his fingers. Nancy gave him a sad smile as the hair flopped back over his forehead. She reached up a finger and gently brushed a stray lock to one side – a gesture more intimate than anything she’d done since they’d broken up. Steve pulled his eyes away from her, looking down at his lap. _He couldn’t sweep everything under the rug – he tried that with Nancy before, it had led to him losing her – he wasn’t prepared to risk his friendship with her as well._

“I know what you think of me,” Steve breathed. “I know – I know you don’t understand how I could have – how I could have done that to Billy – but you have to know – it wasn’t because I didn’t care about him – I _really _thought it was the only way to help him-”

“I know,” she murmured, cutting him off.

Steve’s head snapped up as he looked over at her, her eyes shining with understanding. “What?”

“Steve,” she began, sighing as she looked down at her lap, a small smile playing around her lips. “I stabbed Will in the side with a red-hot poker to get that thing out of him. He’s still got the scar. And Mrs Byers – she practically roasted Will alive – she tied him to a bed and listened to him scream and all she did was turn up the heat. That _thing… _it’s sick. It makes us hurt the people we love most. I think you and Billy know that better than anyone now. But _we _know it too.”

Steve frowned, confused. “But – but you told me to _stop-_”

Nancy’s eyes fell shut as she looked down at her lap. “I wasn’t thinking about Billy, Steve, I was thinking about _you. _Just because something horrible needed to be done didn’t mean that _you _had to be the one to do it. I didn’t want you to have to deal with what would happen if it went wrong – if Billy _didn’t _make it. I can see how hard you took it. I can see how much he _means _to you. You shouldn’t have to be the one to hurt him to save him. That was – that was what it _wanted_. I didn’t want – I didn’t want it to _destroy _you, Steve.”

A hand landed on Steve’s as it rested in his lap. Steve looked up at the genuine, honest smile that she gave him.

“You’re a good person, Steve,” she said gently. “Better than most. You deserved better than what happened to you. You deserved better than to have to _do_ that. But I think… I think if anyone _else _had done it, Billy probably wouldn’t be where he is right now. I’m just… I’m just sorry you had to _do _that.”

Steve looked up at her, blinking back the heat behind his eyes. “Th-thanks, Nance,” he breathed.

She didn’t bother with words after that. She slipped an arm around his neck and just held him, letting him hold her back, just leaning against her. He couldn’t recall how long he stayed like that, just enjoying the familiar warmth of Nancy in his arms, not wishing for anything more than just her friendship.

He had never felt so pleased that he had managed to maintain a friendship with her, even after their relationship’s demise, because she was being everything he needed and more in that moment, like she always had been, and he felt so _lucky _to have her in his life in _any _capacity, her eyes looking at him with such friendship and _love _as she simply held him – at least until he broke the moment by accentuating their height difference by putting his chin on the top of her head, at which point she saw him out of the house with a grin and a _‘you’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.’_

-:-

Steve’s first encounter with Mrs Sinclair came later than with any of the others, given that Lucas had a tendency to stay with Max until she left, getting dropped off by her mom, but he left with Steve one evening when he’d realised he’d left a critical book at home for some English homework. Mrs Sinclair swept Steve into the house, pressed a glass of orange juice into his hand when he had politely declined coffee, and sat him down at the kitchen table and thanked him profusely for getting Lucas and Erica out of Starcourt. Now slightly more familiar with the official cover story, he’d simply looked down at his feet, mumbling something relatively vague while Lucas looked like he wanted to melt into the wall with frustration until Erica had emerged from her room and pulled off an extraordinary trick of taking all the awkwardness, seriousness and warmth out of the moment with a single sentence.

“Hey, Sailor Man,” she announced her presence. “I’m _so _glad you’re not dead, because you and I had an agreement that I never got a chance to cash in on before you went and died: _free ice cream_ _for life._”

Steve almost spilled his orange juice all over the table at the comment as Mrs Sinclair made an outraged noise at Erica, bursting into a thousand apologies as she demanded her daughter apologise to Steve as Lucas groaned and buried his face in his hands at the sheer bluntness of it, while Erica seemed to be the only person who’d noticed that the reason the orange juice was in peril was because Steve was laughing so hard, doubled over the table and wiping away tears. He glanced at her as she grinned at him triumphantly while Steve struggled to bring himself under control, the long-forgotten agreement that they’d come to in a tacky ice cream shop re-emerging at possibly the best moment it ever could.

“You know I don’t _work _there anymore, right?” Steve pointed out when he’d finally brought himself under control.

“You should have stipulated that condition when you made the agreement,” she shrugged. “Not _my _fault you’re terrible at making contracts.”

“_I _didn’t make the agreement, _Robin _did. _I _didn’t agree to _anything._ You need to take it up with _her_.”

“I _did. _She said that because _you died, _and the agreement we had didn’t _specify _whose life the free ice cream would last for, the contract was fulfilled. But since you’re not actually _dead, _I have _eight months’ worth of ice cream _that I’m owed.”

“Sure, but not by _me,_” Steve shrugged. “If she’s using _my _life as the length of time, then fine, but as I said before, _I _didn’t agree to anything, so you need to take that up with her, not me.”

Her face twisted in frustration, trying to find a loophole as Mrs Sinclair looked increasingly confused while Lucas fell face-down over the sofa in the next room and buried his face in a cushion.

“Look, Erica,” Steve held his hands out in an exaggerated shrug as he stood up. “Feel free to get lawyers involved if you like, but I didn’t agree to anything, so…”

She glared at him, a tiny smile belaying the hostility of the gesture.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said, sounding sincere for the first time since Steve had met her.

He grinned at her. “Good to see you, Erica.”

He turned back to Mrs Sinclair. “Thanks for the OJ, Mrs Sinclair, but I should really get going. Lovely to see you, though.”

She smiled, shooting her daughter a strange look before wrapping him up in another hug. “Look after yourself, Steve,” she said.

He nodded before heading towards the door, passing Lucas still on the sofa, his face still buried in a cushion.

“See you, Lucas,” he said.

“_Bye…_” came the muffled reply.

He was still grinning as he arrived home, something his mom noticed immediately as she stepped into the hall as Steve kicked off his new shoes, letting her plant a kiss on his cheek.

“You look happy,” she smiled fondly at him.

He ran a hand up through his hair. “Yeah – uh – one of the kids was…”

He trailed off, trying to find the right words to describe what had happened without revealing that he’d taken a ten-year-old into a Russian base underneath Starcourt in exchange for ice cream.

Fortunately, she seemed to understand, giving him a fond smile. “You beat your father home,” she explained, drifting back through the living room towards the kitchen. “And I’ve been having a look at some more furniture for your room, there’s a catalogue on the coffee table if you want to have a look, I’ve bookmarked the relevant pages for you.”

Steve sighed slightly as his mom’s latest mission to throw herself into, which seemed to be redesigning his room according to the homeware equivalent of _Vogue_ (though Steve wasn’t entirely sure what that was.) Today had clearly been the day she’d been focusing on dressers as Steve found the appropriate catalogue and flicked through to the bookmarked pages where she’d circled several different styles of dressers in all sorts of different colours, most of which looked largely identical to him.

“Yeah, Mom, any of these look fine,” he called out as his mom vanished into the kitchen. “I’m – I’m not really fussed, to be honest.”

“Well, see what your father thinks,” her voice floated out of the kitchen. “He should be home soon – he called to say he was leaving not too long ago.”

Sure enough, less than twenty minutes later, the door opened as Steve was flicking through the channels on the television half-heartedly, watching an ad for Coca Cola more out of sheer inertia than any real interest. His dad smiled at him as Steve propped himself up on the couch in a vague attempt at looking slightly more present, enjoying the moment of his dad’s newfound ritual of clapping a hand on his shoulder by way of greeting.

“Hey Dad,” Steve said. “Apparently Mom wants us to look at _dressers _together.”

His dad rolled his eyes before grinning at him. “In my experience, just spin a pen and pick whichever one is closest to it, it’ll save us both a lot of time.”

He decided that bequeathing the dresser decision to a pen could wait until after dinner, itself a relatively relaxed affair as his mom talked about how she’d run into Mr Clarke from the middle school, who’d asked her to pass on well-wishes to Steve. Steve nodded slightly, remembering Mr Clarke far more from Dustin’s constant monologues, but was nonetheless touched by the gesture.

He headed up to his room after dinner to avoid his mom interrogating him about the dresser, putting a cassette into his new Walkman, blasting the sound of _Wham! _into his eardrums. A new single had come out while he’d been away, and Steve, in his quest to catch up on everything he’d missed, had enjoyed the welcome back gift that Jonathan had given to him on the strict understanding that if anyone _ever _found out that Jonathan had _paid money _for a _Wham! _single, there would be hell to pay. Steve fell back against the bed as the music drowned out the distant ringing of the phone, grinning as he imagined the horrified looks on both Jonathan’s and Billy’s faces at the cheery, upbeat music.

A knock sounded at the door and Steve sat up, bracing himself for his mom to sweep in, catalogue in hand with an insistence that they _decide on a proper dresser, Steven, you can’t be living out of shopping bags indefinitely –_

So he was surprised when his dad’s voice sounded outside the door.

“Steven?” his dad sounded oddly serious. “We – we need to talk.”

_Nothing good had ever come from those words._

Steve got up, Walkman lying forgotten on the bed as he went to open the door. The twist of trepidation in Steve’s stomach became tighter as he saw his father’s grave face. Steve frowned slightly, feeling the worry bubble up in him.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked as his dad walked inside.

His dad ran a hand over his face. “Why don’t you sit down?” he suggested.

Steve did, perching himself on the edge of his bed as his dad did the same. Steve watched his father’s face, watching as he didn’t quite meet Steve’s eyes.

“That was…” his dad began, his voice sounding breathy, like his vocal cords weren’t quite working properly. “That was the hospital on the phone just now.”

Steve’s stomach dropped.

“Billy?” Steve stammered in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. _No – no – Billy had been fine when he’d left – what had happened?_

“_No – _no,” his dad breathed. “No – it’s – it’s not Billy. He’s – he’s still the same, I imagine. No, it’s – it’s Officer Powell. He – he didn’t make it.”

Steve felt his dad’s words hit him like a freight train. _Powell – the man he and his dad had fought to save – he’d been taken to the hospital – they’d tried to save him – he’d been on life support – he shouldn’t have died –_

“His family took him off life support this evening,” his dad explained. “Apparently, he wasn’t going to get better.”

Steve’s chest felt too tight. “No,” he whispered, what little voice that came through sounding much higher than normal. “No – he was _alive _– he was stable – we _did it – _we _saved _him-”

His dad wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Steven, I’m _so _sorry,” he breathed.

“It’s my fault,” Steve gasped. “I should have just – I should have just gone with you – we could have escaped – they wouldn’t have caught us if we’d just _gone-_”

His dad sighed. “It wasn’t your fault, Steven. You gave him a chance-”

“It wasn’t _enough,_” Steve gasped. He couldn’t breathe. He felt his eyes sting as tears welled up – _Powell had been alive – he had been stable – he had been getting better – and now he was gone – gone, because everything that could have been done for him wasn’t enough, and though he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t alive either – just like Billy wasn’t alive, either – they’d both been only kept alive by machines – and Powell was gone – Steve hadn’t been able to save him – what if Billy went the same way? What if –_

_What if nothing was going to be enough?_

-:-

The word _‘if’ _came back again.

There was no warning, nothing Steve could determine that prompted its gradual resurgence, there was no dramatic change in Billy’s condition that he had been warned about. Billy didn’t contract an infection, Billy’s heart didn’t stop working again, he didn’t have another operation where added complications occurred. But time began to stretch, another week came and went that Steve wouldn’t have noticed but for the sudden re-emergence of the word _‘if’ _when used to discuss Billy’s awakening.

He’d been asleep for too long. The doctors now weren’t sure whether he _would _wake up. They were confident that they could keep him alive, keep his heart beating almost indefinitely with a pacemaker, but _for what? _Alive, but in hospital, asleep indefinitely, no sign of any awareness that Steve was there every day, that Max was there every afternoon after school, slowly wasting away in a vegetative state. And for every day that there was no change, the doctors became less and less optimistic, less and less liberal with the word _‘when’._

Steve’s dad had needed to come to the hospital and _make _Steve come home after he had heard the prospect for the first time. Steve had been driven home in the freshly cleaned Mercedes, his own BMW left in the parking lot when it became apparent that fighting off a state of hyperventilation was not the optimal state to be driving in. Steve had been lucky – it happened to be one of the nights that he was due to take some sleeping medication. He was now down to half a tablet every other night, but it was enough to offset the worst of the panic for long enough for him to get a somewhat restful night’s sleep. Even if he _did _wake up at seven the following morning feeling like he’d only been asleep for two hours.

The days passed in a haze of worry, every day of inaction only serving to intensify it. He felt sick to his stomach, his hands entwined with Billy’s as he was joined every afternoon by Max until she was taken away by her mom, usually providing Steve’s own cue to leave. Some days, she was joined by Lucas, or Dustin, or El or Will or Mike, the latter three often forming some combination.

So Steve spent his days largely alone in Billy’s room, listening while Dustin would tutor Max on some vaguely familiar science subject, or else Max would be curled up against Lucas on the incredibly uncomfortable chairs while Steve kept a hand wrapped around Billy’s as he watched constantly for any flicker of an eyelid, any twitch of a hand, anything – _anything at all._

On one of the days where it was just him and Max, the silence evidently got the better of Max when she turned to him, fire burning in her eyes.

“I won’t let them,” she said determinedly.

Steve looked blankly at her, confused. She hadn’t said a word to him since she’d arrived in the middle of the afternoon, taking her seat on her side of Billy’s bed, so unless she’d been talking and he just hadn’t heard, the sentence had come completely out of the blue.

“What are you talking about?”

“The doctors. I won’t let them turn off his life support,” she explained. “I know – I know that’s what you’re worried about, but I won’t let them do that. They need _family _to do that. With his dad AWOL and his mom in California, _we’re _his family. Mom’s already signed everything to say we’re going to take care of him when he wakes up. They can’t do _anything _without us agreeing to it and _I won’t let them._”

It perhaps should have been less of a surprise than it was that Max had so quickly homed in on his biggest fear. She had picked up immediately on his change in demeanour the morning after Powell had passed away, wondering why, when she had heard from Lucas all about how Erica had managed to get Steve to laugh hysterically with a single sentence, she walked in to Steve watching over Billy with red eyes and a hoarse voice. Her first thought, much like Steve’s had been the previous night, had been that something had happened with Billy, that Steve had received some horrific update on his condition while she had been at school before Steve had finally explained that Powell’s family had taken him off life support.

_Powell, who could have so easily been his dad… Powell, who was only dead because he’d chosen to save his dad…_

He didn’t know what to say to Max’s announcement, to her vehement declaration that she wouldn’t let Billy share the same fate. It was true that Billy was doing better than Powell had been – at least, according to Steve’s dad – but it was also true that it wasn’t Max’s call to make. If Susan Mayfield decided that there wasn’t enough hope for Billy, or if, _God forbid_, the increased press coverage drew Neil Hargrove or Billy’s mother out of the woodwork, then there would be little that Max could do to stop them from taking Billy off life support if they made that decision. Steve didn’t know how likely the latter was, given that in the weeks since his return to Hawkins, Neil Hargrove hadn’t even bothered to _call _the Mayfield household, but it remained a possibility. Steve consoled himself by squeezing Billy’s hand tighter, reassuring himself that the warmth against his palm was still there –

_A finger twitched against the back of Steve’s hand._

Steve froze, his heart pounding in his chest as he stared down at Billy’s hand. It had been tiny – a finger making a movement so miniscule against Steve’s skin that it could have been his own imagination. But something – instinct, or possibly just hope – told him that it wasn’t the case.

“Steve?” Max asked, looking warily at his still posture, how Steve’s head had snapped down to Billy’s hand. “What’s wrong?”

Steve’s voice altogether failed him as he held up a hand to silence Max, otherwise freezing as he watched Billy’s hand, not daring to move, not daring to make a sound in case he missed it –

Max’s own head suddenly snapped down to her own hand, still clasping Billy’s other hand. She, on the other hand, adopted a much more proactive policy.

“Billy?” she whispered, turning towards his face as got out of her chair, staring at Billy’s face as she crouched down by the bedside, squeezing his hand.

Steve looked up at Billy’s head, his heart in his mouth as the muscles around Billy’s eyes tightened slightly. Steve barely spared Max a glance, beaming at her as he mimicked her, getting out of the chair and kneeling on the floor close enough to reach Billy’s hair with his free hand.

“Billy?” Steve breathed. “Billy, it’s me – it’s Steve – you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re in hospital-”

The tiniest crease appeared between Billy’s eyebrows as Steve brushed away the curl from his forehead so gently, as though Billy was made of spun glass and could shatter at any moment. The crease deepened slightly as Steve experimentally stroked his hair like he’d always done, in the way that would cause Billy to lose the thread of his sentence, but it was too much – _Billy was frowning – _Steve pulled his hand away –

Billy made a soft hum in protest as Steve’s hand left his hair – though a croak might have been a more accurate description of the tiny noise in the back of his throat through closed lips. Billy turned his head the slightest fraction towards the hand as it left. Steve felt tears prick his eyes as he gently replaced the hand on the top of his head, barely touching him, stroking the hair away with his thumb – _he wasn’t doing anything right – but Billy was here – Billy, for the first time in weeks, was finally responding to him – finally responding to his touch like he always had…_

Billy’s eyelids tightened as he fought to blink them open, but finally, the tiniest sliver of those brilliant blue eyes emerged, as Steve caught the first glimpse of Billy’s gaze and broke into a watery grin.

“Hey, Billy,” Steve breathed, stroking the back of Billy’s hand with the thumb still wrapped around it. He opened his mouth to say something else, but words altogether failed him, so he just bit his bottom lip and smiled tentatively at him.

“…_Steve?_” Billy croaked out through lips that barely parted.

Steve blinked back tears as he smiled. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, it’s me. I’m here.”

Billy gave a soft hum again, his head sinking slightly into the pillows.

“Max is – Max is here, too,” Steve suddenly remembered her presence, her hand still grasped in Billy’s other hand.

“Yeah, I’m – I’m here,” Max said shakily, squeezing his hand. He blinked and his head turned the tiniest bit on the pillow as he looked to his left, frowning slightly as she came into focus.

“Hey,” he breathed at her.

She grinned at him, a watery smile that looked like she was holding back tears as much as Steve was. Her smile lit up the room, deep lines of worry vanishing from her young face as the seemingly permanent crease between her eyebrows smoothed out. She leant forwards and gently – as gently as Steve had touched him – leant her head down on the mattress next to his shoulder as she stretched a hand out over his chest in a close approximation of a hug.

How long the three of them stayed like that, with Max sprawled out over the mattress and Steve gently stroking Billy’s hair as he kneeled on the hard floor, none of them could tell. It was, however, enough for Billy to somewhat regain enough awareness to part his lips, making the croaks that came from them slightly more comprehendible.

“Where am I?” Billy finally broke the silence.

Steve swallowed down the lump in his throat as he tried for a soothing smile. “Hospital. The – the military hospital Owens mentioned.”

Billy gave him a tiny blink before the sliver of blue focused on Steve. “What happened? Is it – is it-”

He hardly dared ask _‘is it over?’ _The idea of it being _‘over’ _– this nightmare that had taken him and sucked him into other worlds, that had taken away all control over his own life in every conceivable way (as well as in a few inconceivable ways, too) was too much to comprehend. He couldn’t put a voice to his question – to his _hope _– but Steve understood anyway.

“Yeah,” Steve breathed, breaking into a smile. “Yeah, Billy. It’s over. We can – we can go _home._”

Steve’s eyes were shining with tears as he looked at Billy, his whole body shaking slightly. Billy gently squeezed the hand that was still holding Steve’s. Steve couldn’t help but finally, _finally _feel the crushing weight from his chest start to lift. He hardly dared to believe it, but Billy was _here, _he was _awake, _his eyes half-open in a lethargic gaze as his hands barely seemed able to close around Steve’s own, and Steve at last – _at last _– let himself imagine their happy ending.

_They could go to California. They could find Billy’s mom now that Neil Hargrove was out of the picture. Billy could find her and have a relationship with her as his own, fully autonomous adult. Hawkins would be waiting for them – Steve’s parents seemed to be getting on better than Steve ever remembered them. His dad knew about Billy and had turned around and told Steve that he loved him anyway, unconditionally. Billy still had Max in Hawkins, but they could maybe bring her out to California for a holiday. Maybe Steve and Billy could start a life in California, somewhere so far removed from the far-flung reaches of Russia or the Upside Down, drenching themselves daily in the hot sun until Billy’s skin was permanently that golden brown tan that had been so synonymous with his persona and maybe Steve’s skin would finally learn to tan too, instead of simply burning like it always did. _

The possibilities stretched out before him as he took in Billy’s face, his hand still wrapped around Billy’s. His head fell down against the bed, against Billy’s hand as he blinked out tears, trying to stop his shoulders from shaking visibly. He evidently failed miserably because Billy’s hand twitched.

“Hey,” Billy mumbled, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Steve’s head snapped up as he felt guilt flood into his stomach. _He needed to get it together – Billy had just woken up – he could deal with this later –_

“Nothing,” Steve said automatically, a smile hitching up onto his face. It technically _wasn’t _a lie – nothing _was _wrong at that exact moment. It was just that the idea that things were _right _– that Billy was awake, that he was going to be okay, that it was _finally, finally over _– after things had been _so _wrong for so long was too much.

Billy, however, did not look remotely convinced.

“Max,” he muttered, flicking his eyes over to her, his head still turned towards Steve. “Could you give us a minute?”

A flash of defiance – or possibly just surprise – flashed across Max’s face, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to refuse Billy anything. Not in the state he was in, at least. She gave a small smile before standing up, giving Billy’s hand one last squeeze before the door clicked shut behind her.

Alone with Billy, awake at last, Steve smiled at him, instantly trying to lighten the mood, to get the topic off of him so that Billy couldn’t say what he wanted to say, so that Billy didn’t have to deal with his meltdown, so that Billy didn’t have to take care of Steve when it should be the other way around, _so that Billy couldn’t say that he hated Steve for what he’d done –_

“You know, Tommy’s planning a welcome back party or something for us – he’s going to be so excited that you’re awake-”

“_Steve._”

The one word silenced Steve, still kneeling on the floor with red eyes, looking at Billy with a flash of heartbreak as his walls felt shaky on their foundations.

“Steve,” Billy breathed. “What’s wrong?”

The barest flash of a lie danced on Steve’s tongue, another attempt to deny it, to force the attention back onto Billy, but Billy gave him such a serious look that the word died on his lips. Billy, freshly awoken from a coma with barely the ability to speak coherently, words slurring together in a mumble, had sent Max out, had asked him what was wrong that Steve couldn’t bring himself to lie to him – to insult Billy with another denial. Billy squeezed the hand still in his own and Steve felt his walls finally come crashing to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Steve gasped as the dam burst, tears flooding down his face. “I’m so sorry, Billy – I’m so sorry – I’m sorry for everything – I’m sorry for hurting you – I’m sorry I let you down – I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it – I’m sorry I couldn’t kill it when it was in Ozerov – I’m sorry it escaped – I’m sorry it targeted you – I’m sorry I couldn’t even keep it together now you’ve just woken up – _God, _Billy – I’m _so sorry _– for _everything…_”

Billy pulled his hand out from under Steve’s, pulling it away _– because of course he was – how could he bear to be close to Steve now – _Steve’s head fell back against the mattress as the strength left his body – his limbs were loose, he was barely able to stay upright – his eyes closed as the tears fell, soaking the sheets beneath his face –

A hand flopped, none too gracefully, on the back of his head. Fingers slowly started to work their way into the dark locks while the steady weight remained in place, Billy’s strength exhausted by that simple movement. Steve didn’t dare move – didn’t dare push Billy’s hand to one side as he clutched at the sheets, sobbing into the backs of his hands as he enjoyed what little comfort Billy could provide in a poor pastiche of a hand stroking his hair like Steve was wanton to do.

“Steve,” Billy breathed.

Steve’s sob caught in his throat, but he didn’t dare raise his head – _he couldn’t bear to see the condemnation in Billy’s eyes –_

“Steve, _look at me._”

With little choice left, _because he was continually surprised by the accuracy of the phrase ‘doing anything for someone’, _Steve finally lifted his puffy, bloodshot eyes to look at Billy. Billy was looking at him with the closest thing to a withering look as he could manage in his state, hand falling sideways and back onto the mattress with a soft _thump. _

“I know it’s been said before,” Billy mumbled, “but I don’t think anyone’s ever meant this as much as I do now.”

Steve blinked, a small, confused crease appearing between his eyes.

“You’re an _idiot, _Steve Harrington,” Billy’s lips quirked up slightly into the closest thing he could manage to a smile. “A complete fucking moron. Never met anyone stupider.”

A small, hysterical laugh bubbled up from Steve’s lips as he broke into a teary grin.

“Here you are, my fucking _hero,_” Billy continued. “And you’re sat here crying by my bedside over not being able to stop a Mind Monster _after_ you stopped it? Really, Harrington, how’d you work that one out?”

Steve felt a fresh wave of tears as his chuckle got more hysterical. He looked down at his hands, blinking them back in a vain hope that Billy wouldn’t see.

“It’s called the Mind _Flayer, _actually,” he muttered, trying to keep the grin out of his voice.

“I’m trying to be serious here, not a fucking _nerd,_” Billy grumbled. “You… you _saved my life, _Steve.”

The jest immediately left Billy’s voice at the last five words. Billy fixed Steve with a soft but intense look, his blue eyes opening as wide as Billy could manage as he looked so _earnestly _at Steve. Steve blinked, pulling his eyes away as he looked down at his hands.

“I didn’t do a great job of it,” Steve mumbled. “I almost killed you in the process-”

“Steve, if you’d _killed_ me, it was because I was already dead anyway,” Billy twitched his thumb in the general direction of Steve’s hands. Steve understood the instruction, taking the hand in his own and squeezing it gently.

“I mean it,” Billy said, his voice stronger but still hoarse from lack of use. “That thing wanted to _kill _me then – it was _going _to kill me – to make me into its puppet with nothing left of me – of _us _– and Steve… I was _scared. _I was _so _scared that it was going to kill me. And then it was going to kill all of _you, _and I… I couldn’t _do _that. But _you…_”

Billy pulled his hand out of Steve’s again and lifted it weakly to brush Steve’s face with his fingertips, trying to press his palm against Steve’s cheek. Steve lifted his own hand to hold Billy’s there as they looked at each other, tears in both their eyes.

“You _stopped _it. You _saved _me. You got it out of me. And even when it _hurt, _even when _it _was screaming to stop, I wasn’t _scared_. When you were setting it on fire, I wasn’t scared. Because it was _you._ Because… because I _love _you, Steve. I meant it when I said it then – I meant it _long _before I said it – I _love _you. More than I’ve ever loved _anyone. _More than Max, more than – more than _Mom, _even. You’re the _best _of me. I love you. And I always will.”

Steve didn’t know if he could speak. He drew a shuddering breath, his whole body shaking as he fought to repress a sob. Tears poured down his face, but Steve didn’t try to stop them this time. He saw tears falling down Billy’s face, from the corner of his eyes before rolling down the side of his face as he lay there.

“I love you too, Billy,” Steve finally breathed.

Billy’s smile stretched as Steve smiled back, his grip on the hand still pressed against his cheek tightening reassuringly as Billy gently brushed his thumb across Steve’s face, wiping away what tears he could reach. Steve did the same with his free hand, gently brushing away the tear that slowly slipped down across Billy’s temple.

“Get your ass over here,” Billy mumbled.

Steve frowned momentarily. “What?”

“I want to kiss you, but I also don’t want to move, so you’re going to have to do the work, Harrington.”

Steve laughed, rolling his eyes as he finally pushed himself off his knees and shifted closer to Billy’s head.

“_God, _you’re lazy,” Steve shook his head with mock despair, unable to keep his voice from shaking with laughter as he bent down over Billy.

“Yeah, well, get used to it,” Billy breathed against Steve’s lips.

Steve gently brushed his lips against Billy’s, touching them against his gently, terrified that Billy might break under the slightest touch, but Billy leaned towards the touch as much as he could, coaxing Steve down with a sigh. Billy opened his mouth as Steve gave a little more, pressing against Billy’s mouth with the slightest of pressure. Billy responded in kind, deepening the kiss and brushing his tongue against Steve’s. Steve leaned in a fraction more, adjusting his hand so that it curved around the top of Billy’s head, his fingers nestling in the curls. Billy twisted his head a fraction, readjusting it on the pillow to get a better angle, opening his mouth wider as Steve mimicked his movement, the kiss getting deeper and deeper as Steve leant more and more into it –

Billy let out a soft groan beneath him and Steve instantly recoiled back, alarm shooting through him as he glanced around at his own hands – at Billy’s body – wondering how he’d hurt Billy – _he shouldn’t have been kissing him so hard –_

A soft hand brushed Steve’s face, still hovering inches from Billy’s and Steve’s eyes flashed up to meet Billy’s bright blue gaze, looking at him with hunger, pupils blown wide as the heart monitor kept beeping faster than Steve remembered it – fast enough for Steve to notice it when he usually tuned it out as Billy’s lips quirked into a mischievous smile.

“Did I say stop?” Billy’s eyes twinkled up at him.

Steve grinned, shaking his head despairingly before bending down to kiss him again, _properly this time, _like he’d wanted to for _weeks, _pouring all his hope, his happiness, his _love _into his kiss, feeling Billy’s love in the way he was kissed back.

It felt like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. My. God.
> 
> I actually cannot believe it. There’s just the epilogue still to go and then this is going to be OVER… I’ll have to… find something to DO with my life…
> 
> Honestly, though, it has been such a pleasure writing this story. I’ll save some mushy stuff for the big final epilogue, but thank you so much to everyone who’s ever kudosed, bookmarked, or commented on this story. I’ve been absolutely blown away by all your support. You guys have kept me writing and I cannot thank you enough. I couldn’t have asked for better readers, and you guys have completely indulged me while I rewrote season 3 and what would have happened if I was writing season 4 to suit my fantasies and fill the void left by having to WAIT. I love you all so much, and I hope you liked the ending. As I say, there’s still the epilogue to go, but I’m so happy you stuck around for the end. I made it a happy one! (Somehow. Please don’t ask me how. I’m still not sure…)


	58. Epilogue: Mr Blue Sky

**April 19, 1986**

The sports bag on the bed was proving much more difficult to zip up than it had any right to. The zip got caught in the fabric as Steve tried to tease it closed.

He could hardly believe the day had arrived. Billy had finally been given a relatively clean bill of health by Owens after over six weeks of bed rest, both in and out of hospital, that had gradually been interspersed with light exercise and physiotherapy. Owens had officially said to them both that they would no longer need to be checking in with him on a regular basis and had finally given them the green light to leave Hawkins for the much-anticipated trip to California. Billy had barely been able to talk about anything else, his excitement so contagious as he and Steve had settled on the earliest possible weekend to leave for what would be a week-long drive to San Francisco. They hadn’t planned much beyond getting to San Francisco and meeting up with some of Billy’s friends, with their ultimate plan for the immediate future being staying on a couch until they worked out their next step, whether it was to spend a few weeks there or to stay in California indefinitely. The world was at their feet, their plans open to staying in California for as long as they liked, subject to certain conditions, such as _‘calling home every night, Steven, or else you might find something happening to the credit card that was going to be funding the overwhelming majority of the trip’. _Steve was yet to work out _how _his dad planned to engineer that, given that the credit card was in Steve’s name.

They couldn’t have picked a better day to leave. The wall-to-wall blue sky made it feel like summer had come early, bathing Hawkins in slightly warmer than average weather for mid-April. Sunlight bathed his room as he finally succeeded in doing up the bag.

A soft, fond snicker from the doorway of his bedroom caught Steve’s attention as he turned to look at his mom, a warm smile on her face.

“Hey,” Steve grinned at her, finally succeeding in getting the zip free.

She looked at him fondly, her eyebrows raising as she quirked her head to one side at his success.

“Got your toothbrush?” she asked.

Steve rolled his eyes. “_Yes_, Mom, I’ve got my toothbrush.”

He unzipped the recently zipped-up bag, drawing out a black washbag and opening it to show her. She glanced at it before looking at Steve.

“Toothpaste?”

Steve groaned in frustration before turning back to the washbag. “_Yes, _Mom, I’ve got toothpaste as well-”

He broke off, pausing for a moment before putting the washbag down on top of the bag. He slipped out of the room past his Mom’s shit-eating grin, grabbing the white tube from the counter in the bathroom and packing it into the washbag.

“_Okay, _Mom, I’ve got toothpaste. But it’s not like they’re not going to have _shops _in California. If the worst comes to the worst, it’s not impossible for us to _buy _things.”

His mom sighed, the smile dropping a fraction. “I know,” she said. “But it’s a long drive to California. You might not have shops near the motels you stop at. And I worry. I’m allowed to – I’m your mother.”

Steve paused in his repacking of the washbag into the sports bag, turning back to her and crossing the room as he wrapped her up in a hug. She returned it, her hands wrapping around his waist as Steve bent down slightly to lean his chin on her shoulder.

“I’m going to be okay,” Steve murmured. “We’re going to _California. _We’re going to San Francisco, Billy’s going to teach me to surf, it’s going to be _really _warm. I’m going to be _fine._”

She smiled sadly, pulling back to look at him and brushed a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. While his hair wasn’t quite as long as it had been the previous summer, but it was cut much more neatly, and felt very much more like something worthy of Steve’s old moniker.

“I know,” she said. “And I hope you have a good time – a _really _good time. You deserve it. I hope it’s good for you and – and Billy. But – I’m going to _miss _you, Steven. I’m _really_ going to miss you.”

Steve didn’t really know what to say to that as his mom leaned up to plant a kiss on his cheek. He was saved from having to say anything, however, by a soft knock on the open door. Steve looked up to see his dad standing there, a smile on his face.

“All packed?” his dad asked, looking at the bag on the bed.

Steve nodded, finally extricating himself from his mom’s grip. “Yeah, it’s – it’s all good.”

His dad smiled at him as Steve noticed for the first time the small black box in his dad’s hands.

“I – uh – I wasn’t sure whether to give this to you last night, but since I’m not working today,” his dad muttered. “Well – given that you were… _away _for your birthday, I thought I owed you a birthday present, and – well, you could probably use this in California.”

He handed the small box to Steve, whose confusion intensified as he took it. He lifted the lid, his eyebrows shooting up as he looked down at its contents.

It was a watch, with a smart steel band and a gold face. A small box that proudly declared the date stood in place of a marker for the number three. Steve looked down at it before looking up at his dad.

“I know you haven’t gotten yourself a watch,” his dad explained. “And I thought you might suit something a little more grown-up. James – you know James, my old partner – he recommended this one to me. I thought it might help you stay a bit more on top of things, help you keep track of – of time.”

Steve couldn’t find words, a lump forming in his throat as he looked down at it. His heart felt double its size for reasons that had very little to do with the watch itself; his dad hadn’t given him a birthday present in person since he’d turned eight, the presents getting less and less personal with each passing year. And the watch, after everything that had happened…

It was as close to perfect as possible.

“Th – Thanks, Dad,” Steve murmured, looking up at him.

His dad smiled at him, clapping a hand on Steve’s upper arm. “Happy… _very _late birthday, I suppose.”

Steve gave a small laugh, slipping the watch on.

“It looks good on you,” his mom said.

Steve couldn’t argue, giving a soft hum of agreement until his dad broke the moment.

“Right,” he said briskly. “What time do you need to be at Billy’s to pick him up?”

Steve looked up at him, his brain taking a moment to catch up. “Uh – I said I’d be there at two-thirty.”

“Two thirty?” his mom echoed. “You’re cutting it a bit fine…”

Steve shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m going to – I’m going to head off in a minute…”

He trailed off, not entirely sure what to say. He’d been looking forward to leaving – he and Billy had practically been counting down the days – but now, faced with the moment of departure, he suddenly felt _terrified. _Nervous, terrified, and excited. The world was at his fingertips, finally ready for Steve to go out and _take it _in a way he hadn’t dared to contemplate before Billy had woken up. There was _so much _out there for him – for Billy – and it was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

Fortunately, his dad seemed to have words when Steve didn’t, stepping over to the bag on the bed. “Right, well, let’s get your stuff into the car then. Is it just this?”

Steve blinked, taken aback for the briefest moment as he offered out a hand to take the bag. “Uh – yeah – I’ll-”

“I’ve got it, don’t worry,” his dad said, waving Steve’s hand away as he led the way out of the room and down the stairs. Steve followed, a little at a loss with his hands completely empty. Neither Steve nor his dad noticed his mom pause at the top of the stairs as Steve rushed to get the door for his dad as she forced herself to take a deep breath, rubbing her eyes with the tips of her fingers before following them down the stairs and out to the car, where Steve and his dad were managing to make the simple task of putting a bag in the trunk unnecessarily complicated.

“Dad, seriously, I’ve got it-”

“I’m just saying you’re going to need to repack the car or else have all of Billy’s stuff on the back seat if you’re not careful-”

“It’s really not a big deal-”

“Yes, but why not just put the bag over there _now_ so you can use all this space-”

Linda couldn’t help but smile fondly at them. The arguing was not new – Paul _always _thought he knew best and Steven’s opinions seemed to default to the opposite of Paul’s at every possible opportunity – but the love between them was clear as crystal now, Steven smiling as he sighed exasperatedly as Paul insisted on putting the bag as close to the back corner of the trunk as possible.

“You’re packed awfully light for this trip,” Paul frowned at the solitary bag in the back corner.

“_Dad, _I promise you, it’s _fine,_” Steven groaned. “I’ve got the essentials, clothes, toothbrush, _toothpaste…_”

He glanced over at Linda with a cheeky grin on his face as Linda couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“_Alright,_” Paul held up his hands defensively. “It’s _your_ trip, after all…”

“Dad,” Steven gave a small laugh as he smiled at Paul, but his eyes were serious. “I’m going to be _fine._”

Paul turned towards Steven and smiled. “I know,” he said, his voice turning equally serious. “And I know you don’t know how long you’re going for, whether it’s going to be a few weeks or a month or… or whether it’s going to turn into something more _permanent_, but you remember our deal. You come home for Independence Day, okay? Even if it’s just a passing visit.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Steven nodded. “I’ll be home for then, don’t worry.”

“Good,” Paul smiled, softening his tone briefly, before becoming stern again – even if the effect was slightly dampened by the grin across his face. “And you call us. _Every night. _I _mean _it, Steven, I want to know you’re okay.”

“_Yes, _Dad, I will,” Steve sighed exasperatedly, grinning back at him.

“Good,” Paul said. “Or else you might run into some problems with that new bank card of yours.”

“Alright, I got the message,” it was Steven’s turn to throw his hands up defensively.

“You’ve _got _your bank card, right?” Linda cut in, unable to help herself.

Steven groaned exasperatedly as he turned to her. “_Yes, _Mom, I’ve got my wallet, I’ve got my keys, I’ve got _spare pairs of underwear…_”

Paul gave a soft laugh. “Alright, I think you’ve been mothered enough. Now, you should probably be on your way or else you’re going to be late for Billy.”

Steven grinned, a barely restrained grin that spread across his face and creased his eyes as he turned to them both. “I guess this is it, then,” he said. The smile was enormous, but Linda didn’t miss the way he pressed his lips together for a moment, as though biting back to say something more. Linda tried to hold back the tears that pricked her eyes. They’d got him back a matter of _months _ago, and now he was _leaving,_ going away to take on the world in the next chapter of his life – a chapter Linda had thought for months that he wouldn’t have had the chance to see. She’d made her peace seemingly a lifetime ago that Steven would leave – to go to college, or to go travelling, or to do _something _– but she’d thought that chance had been ripped away in the worst possible way, and now, after getting him back, it stung fresh in her mind that _this was it._

Paul pulled him into a tight hug against his chest briefly before clasping both his shoulders. “Have a wonderful time, son,” he said. “I hope it’s everything you want it to be.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Steven gave a shy smile.

Paul stepped back, letting Linda slip her arms around his shoulders and pull him so that he was bent over while she pressed a kiss on his cheek.

“I’m really going to miss you, darling,” she breathed. “But I hope you have a lovely time, and that… and that you find what you want. But never forget that I love you, Steven.”

“We both do,” Paul added as he rested a hand against Steven’s back.

Steven finally pulled back, tears clear in his eyes as Linda finally let her own tears fall. Steven smiled at them.

“I love you, too,” he said to them. Linda smiled as she wiped her face with her fingers, brushing away a stray tear as Steven opened the door and got into the car.

Linda finally stepped back from the car as she raised her hand to wave while Steven started to pull out of the driveway. He paused at the end of the driveway, giving them both a wave before turning onto the street. Linda waved until the car rounded a corner and vanished out of sight, while Paul slipped a hand around her shoulders, letting her lean against him.

“He’ll be okay, won’t he?” she asked, the only hint she would ever offer Paul of the anxiety in her chest.

“Yeah,” she felt Paul nod behind her. “He’ll be okay.”

-:-

Steve arrived at Cherry Lane exactly four minutes later than he had planned, a fact that Billy would have brought up if he hadn’t been struggling to get the ridiculous amount of luggage that he’d packed into the car. Steve had watched with increasing trepidation as Billy had flitted in and out of the house, hauling enormous bags out onto the porch, wedging them into the trunk of Steve’s car. Steve had managed to restrain himself from commenting until Billy finally started shoving down the last backpack into a space that looked like it was about three inches too short on all sides for it.

“It’s not going to fit.”

“It’ll fit.”

“Billy, you’ve packed _way _too much, it’s not going to fit-”

“It just needs a little-”

Billy shoved the final backpack into the trunk, leaving his bags wedged tightly as Steve sighed, stepping back away from the car in Billy’s driveway, wondering how on earth he was supposed to get his own bag out from the back corner of the trunk when they stopped for the night. Billy had packed a large, battered suitcase, two backpacks, one of which he insisted was _‘just the essentials for a week on the road so he didn’t have to unpack and repack every night.’ _

“We’re driving to _California_, not back to Kamchatka,” Steve sighed. “You know they have _shops _there.”

“Not _everyone _has a rich dad bankrolling their holiday,” Billy pointed out.

Steve snorted. “_You’re _going to be benefitting from that just as much as _I _am.”

Billy grinned at Steve, his excitement contagious as he pulled the trunk shut, only to see it swing back open as it couldn’t catch due to the overstuffed compartment. Billy’s grin fell into a frown as he looked down at the contents, turning back to it as Steve sighed, throwing his hands up and turning away as a red-headed figure emerged from the house. Susan was at work, picking up as many extra shifts as possible to support her stepson as much as possible in the continued absence of Neil Hargrove, despite the Department of Energy footing the bill for both Steve and Billy’s medical treatment. Max, having borne witness to Billy’s packing, however, had made it perfectly clear that she wanted to stay and watch the undoubtedly entertaining show of Billy trying to cram as many bags as possible into Steve’s car.

“Did it fit?” Max asked, smirking at Billy’s form, bent over the bags.

Steve shook his head. “He got them _into _the trunk, the only problem is that it now won’t close.”

“_It just needs a little reordering, that’s all,_” Billy’s voice floated out from the depths of the trunk.

“Well, while you’re reordering, any chance you could put my bag at the _front, _so we don’t have to go through this _every time we stop at a motel?_” Steve huffed before turning back to Max. “I feel like we’re going to be here a while.”

Max glanced over at Billy, her face twisting into a sceptical grimace as she nodded grimly. “I couldn’t even get into the bathroom this morning; his stuff was _all over _the hall.”

Steve turned back as Billy swore at the contents of the trunk before yanking a bag out and shoving it back in a different place. He thought briefly about offering to help but the glare on Billy’s face as the trunk swung back open after he tried shutting it again told Steve that Billy was having _far _too much fun doing this on his own and that Steve didn’t want to deprive him.

“You know, it’s probably a good thing this is taking a while,” Max commented nonchalantly. “Given that your surprise is running late because Dustin couldn’t find your going away card.”

Steve’s eyes widened as he pulled his best shocked expression that fooled Max for exactly zero seconds. Max looked unimpressed, giving Steve a withering look that wasn’t meant for him.

“Dustin told you, didn’t he?”

“He let it slip a couple of times, yeah.”

Max rolled her eyes. “Of course he did,” she sighed. “And _he _was the one going crazy about me not being a part of choosing the card because if I went with them, _‘Billy might ask where you are and then he might not believe you if you tell him you’re just hanging out with Lucas and if he thinks you’re lying then he might follow you and find out and tell Steve!’_”

Steve fought very hard to stop himself bursting out laughing. “I think he’s badly misjudged the amount Billy cares about what you do in your spare time.”

“That’s pretty much what I said,” Max shrugged.

Billy finally straightened up and pulled the trunk closed only for it to swing back up as Steve snorted with laughter. Billy gave Steve an unimpressed glare as he flipped him off.

“You could _help, _you know,” Billy pointed out. “_Either _of you.”

Max and Steve glanced at each other, smirking, before turning back to Billy as Steve shook his head.

“Watching you struggle is _way _more fun,” Max grinned.

Billy paused in his quest to get the trunk shut to give Max a filthy glare as a car turned onto the street.

“Watch it, shitbird,” Billy growled as he turned back to the trunk.

A blue car pulled up on the street outside the house, the doors swinging open to reveal Robin, Dustin and Lucas. Dustin immediately waved at Steve before diving into the trunk of Robin’s car, emerging with two large white paper bags as Robin sidled up the driveway.

“Hey, Dingus,” she grinned. “You excited to get out of this shitheap – _whoah, _what the hell?”

She stopped short at the sight of the jam-packed trunk, tilting her head to the side slightly.

“I thought you were going on holiday to California, not… going to start a new life as hermits in the heart of the Amazon.”

“Oh – no – Billy is _entirely _to blame for this,” Steve said, stepping forward as Billy tucked a strap away from the locking mechanism.

“Hey, I’m just packing on the safe side-” Billy began.

“You see, that’s_ my_ bag,” Steve pointed at the sports bag tucked away in the far corner of the trunk as Robin started giggling. “And _all the rest _of this shit is _Billy’s._”

Robin’s giggles were clearly contagious as Max started laughing, setting off Lucas and in turn, Dustin.

“Okay, so _neither _of you know how to pack for a holiday,” Robin laughed.

Steve frowned, confused at the turn the conversation had taken. “I packed _light-_”

“_No, _Dingus, you packed an _overnight bag,_” Robin shook her head in amusement as Billy broke into a grin.

“Hey, that’s what _I _said!” Billy chimed in.

“And _you, _Dipshit, packed for the freaking _apocalypse,_” Robin rounded on Billy, sending his grin sliding off his face.

“And that’s what _I _said,” Max finished.

Steve glanced at Billy, who looked as outraged as Steve felt as they turned back to Robin. They both burst into protests simultaneously at each other’s expense while Robin watched them, looking more entertained and smug with every passing second. They were only cut off a minute later when Nancy’s car pulled up outside and Nancy, Jonathan, Mike and Will all spilled out of the car.

“Sorry we’re late,” Jonathan announced. “Mom couldn’t find her car keys, so we had to help her – uh,_ how _long was this trip again?”

Jonathan paused as he frowned at the extremely full trunk, pointing at it as he looked between Steve, Billy and the car.

“Don’t start,” Steve huffed, rolling his eyes. “_Someone _seems to think that California isn’t going to have a laundromat or something.”

Billy turned to Steve and shot him a glare, holding eye contact as he finally succeeded in shutting the trunk. Steve smirked back just in time for a green car to pull up across the street, signalling the arrival of Joyce, Hopper and El. Hopper and Joyce gave small waves to Steve and Billy while El smiled at them before melting into Mike’s side at the first opportunity.

Steve, while not surprised by the send-off in the slightest, was a _little _surprised to see Hopper there.

“I wasn’t expecting you to make it,” Steve tilted his head in surprise. “I thought it was your first week back or something.”

Steve had become all too familiar with the police department’s politics after his dad had handed the decision over whether or not to reinstate Hopper to the Commissioner. The Commissioner had ultimately decided that a leave of absence was necessary, but that Hopper had been acting in the best interests of everyone involved, so Hopper had been reinstated following a weeks-long retraining course.

“It’s a Saturday, kid,” Hopper shrugged, tilting his head back. “Also, you really think I would _miss _Hawkins’ two biggest pains in my ass leaving to become San Francisco PD’s problem? I’ve got a bottle of champagne in the car.”

“Ah, Chief, I never knew you cared,” Billy grinned. “And I’m _honoured _that you consider me the biggest pain in your ass.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head despairingly.

“You boys ready to go?” Joyce asked. “All packed?”

“_Yes!_” several voices firmly chorused before either Steve or Billy could answer.

“We don’t need to go into it _again,_” Robin said, giving Joyce a long-suffering look.

“_Anyway,_” Dustin clearly couldn’t contain his excitement any longer. “Now that we’re all _finally _here, it’s time for _presents._”

Steve blinked, taken aback. “You guys didn’t have to-”

“Well, we _wanted _to, Steve,” Dustin rounded on him. “Now, I know you’re going surfing, and you’re going to need to fit in, so we all chipped in to get you _these._”

Dustin shoved the white paper bags at Steve and Billy respectively, giving a quick glance inside one to check he had them the right way around. Steve took it hesitantly as he glanced inside, wincing at the bright colours that met his eye.

“Who is responsible… for _this?_” Billy gave a slightly horrified look as he drew out a hot pink Hawaiian shirt from the bag, glancing over at Max knowingly as she smiled sweetly.

“Billy, you _know _how great you look in pink,” she sang back at him.

“Just to be clear, yours was entirely chosen by _Max,_” Lucas said defensively.

“Yeah, she said you’d never wear it anyway, so she chose the most horrific one in the shop,” Will added, grinning.

Billy gave Max a scowl that didn’t quite touch his eyes as Steve repressed a laugh, relieved that his was at least _red. _He pulled out the garish palm tree-adorned shirt and held it up.

“You realise nobody _actually _wears these in California, right?” Billy pointed out.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Steve grinned. “I think we could start a trend.”

He pulled off his jacket and replaced it with the red shirt, holding up his arms and spinning with an enormous grin on his face.

“Oh my god, it’s better than the Scoops uniform,” Robin couldn’t contain herself.

Steve didn’t quite drop his grin, but his eyes glazed over into an unimpressed look.

“_Anyway,_” Nancy cut in. “As hilarious as Billy Hargrove in a bright pink Hawaiian shirt would be, we did get you something that you might actually use.”

“And by _we,_ she’s including _us _in that,” Joyce added, digging into her bag and pulling out a not-insubstantial box that she handed to Steve. Steve took it, feeling more than a little stunned as he peeled off the red and green wrapping paper.

“Sorry about the wrapping paper,” Joyce babbled. “We only had Christmas wrapping paper in the house-”

“You mean they _don’t_ do _‘good luck running away to California after getting abducted by Soviets’ _themed wrapping paper in Melvald’s?” Billy grinned, pulling a mock-outraged expression as Steve rolled his eyes, methodically peeling away the tape to preserve the paper and reveal a polaroid camera.

“Holy shit,” Billy breathed, his grin morphing into a genuinely appreciative smile. “Guys, I…”

“It’s not the most expensive model,” Joyce started to explain. “I – Jonathan recommended it, but-”

“It’s pretty durable,” Jonathan explained. “Robust, shouldn’t break if you get sand in it or something, it’s not top of the line so it’s not the end of the world if you lose it and it’s not likely to get stolen or something…”

Steve ran his hands over the box, biting at his lip as he stared down at it, an all-too-familiar warmth behind his eyes.

“It comes with a condition,” Max gave a sweet smile that did not bode well for anyone. “You _have _to get a photo of Billy in that shirt for me.”

Steve snorted with laughter as Billy gave a roll of the eyes as the moment was broken.

“Not going to happen, shitbird,” he said as he pulled Max into a hug.

“Before you start _hugging _us and this starts getting emotional,” Robin said. “We’ve got one last thing for you.”

Steve looked up, his mouth parted slightly. “_No – _no, this is already _way _too much, you’ve bought us a _camera-_”

“_Relax, _Dingus, this isn’t something we _bought,_” Robin rolled her eyes. “We just all agreed that since you two are probably going to argue about _everything _while you’re on the road, we’d find a nice solution to one of the more common arguments.”

Billy looked at her, frowning. “We don’t argue about _everything…_”

He trailed off at her withering look.

“Well, we know what you’re both like with _music,_” Jonathan said, handing over a cassette. “So we figured, rather than force you to alternate between hours of _Wham! _and hours of _Metallica_, we’d shake it up by putting together a mixtape for you.”

“Yeah, we all got together and put together some of your favourite songs to try and circumvent any arguments about who gets to choose the music,” Max explained. “So if you can’t agree on something, you just put this on. So _Steve _only has to put up with one death metal song before he gets something with a tune and _Billy _only has to put up with one cheerful song before he can start banging his head against the dashboard because he _likes _the music rather than because he _hates _it.”

“The B-side is also a collection of _good _songs in the hopes of broadening your horizons,” Robin added. “Don’t worry, I vetted all of Jonathan’s choices so there’s not a single _Clash _song to be found there.”

“Oh, thank _God,_” Billy grinned, glancing down at the tape.

Steve looked between the tape in Billy’s hands, the camera in his own and the shirt he was still wearing in the bright sunlight. “I… I don’t know what to say…”

“_Oh – _yeah – one more thing,” Dustin suddenly started fumbling around in his pockets before pulling out a slightly bent envelope which he handed to them. Steve gave up juggling the camera and opened the back door of the car to put the camera on the seats before taking the card and opening it.

It was not a particularly inspired design – a drawing of a boat with cursive text reading _‘Bon Voyage’_ emblazoned above it, but neither Steve nor Billy cared as they flipped it open to read a page of messages.

_Have a great trip! Enjoy the sun and send a postcard! – Nancy_

Continuing straight on from that:

_Hope the camera means you can take lots of photos. I want to see them all when you come back, I’m a bit jealous! – Jonathan_

Then, a mass of brightly coloured scrawls that were jumbled up all over the place from the kids.

_Have a lovely time! Love El_

_Good luck! And try not to kill each other anymore – Mike_

_I hope California is everything you want it to be! – Will_

_Have a great time! Hope the drive there isn’t too painful, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it when you get there! – Lucas_

_Billy, be nice to Steve. Steve, it’s a little-known secret that Billy burns in California sun if he doesn’t put on sunscreen so if he starts being a dick, there’s a trick where you can use sunscreen to draw something on his back so it burns around it. Otherwise, have a great time, we’re really going to miss you back here. Remember to call us and send a postcard and do all those things and I’m expecting a souvenir when you get back! Love, Max_

_STEVE! I’m going to miss you SO MUCH when you’re gone! BUT I know that you’re really looking forward to California and I hope you have an AMAZING time! Don’t forget about us though! I know you’re not really sure about your plans but I know you’re coming home at least for July so I’ll see you then if not before but if you don’t call us when you get there then I will come down to California MYSELF, even if I have to hitchhike all the way there! Look after Billy, make sure Billy looks after you and just remember to have the BEST time and we all love you back here! Love Dustin_

The writing of Dustin’s message got progressively smaller and smaller as he ran out of space, and Steve suspected that Dustin probably had much more to say that hadn’t quite fit as he’d written into a corner to the point where his own signature was so small it was barely legible. The three remaining people assembled had moved over onto the other side of the card.

_Have a lovely time! Look after yourselves and remember that we’re always here for you, no matter what. If you ever need to call, please do. Otherwise, I hope this trip is everything you’ve dreamed of and more! Joyce_

_Look after yourselves and stay out of trouble. I don’t want any calls from SFPD that you delinquents have gotten yourselves arrested or something. But have a great time. You deserve it. Jim_

And underneath those two messages was one from Robin, who clearly enjoyed the space that came with being the last person to sign.

_Dingus and Dipshit,  
Have a great time in California! But look after yourselves. If I hear one word about you two getting into trouble, I will kick your asses myself. I’m not going to be around to clear up your messes, so don’t do anything too stupid. (I’d say don’t do anything stupid at all, but it’s you two we’re talking about, so we know that’s already a lost cause.) I hope you find what you’re looking for in San Francisco, and have the best time. Again, I’ll kick your asses if you don’t. Love, Robin_

Steve was rendered speechless as he read through the card with Billy reading over his shoulder. He pressed a hand to his mouth as his eyes fell closed, feeling a warmth spread inside him. Not for the first time, he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have these people in his life. He looked around at the people assembled, all looking expectantly at him as he glanced over at Billy, who was staring at the card, looking just as humbled as Steve.

“…You had no right to tell him that,” Billy pointed at Max without looking at her, a grin spreading across his face as he couldn’t quite hide the emotion behind a growl. “That’s a closely guarded secret that not even my best friends know.”

“Well, now we do, Shithead,” Robin grinned, the sly edge her smile had not quite reaching her eyes that shone with warmth and love. “Seriously though, have a great time.”

Steve looked at her, smiling as she finally crossed the distance and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug.

“I mean it, Dingus,” she said. “Have the _best _time.”

Steve smiled as his eyes fell shut as he leant against her. She pulled back, letting Nancy come and envelop him in a hug.

“Take care of yourself,” she smiled as she pulled back. “Stay out of trouble.”

Steve couldn’t help but snort at that. “_You’re_ one to talk.”

She gave him a slightly sheepish look, biting her lip as she smiled.

“Don’t worry, Nance,” Steve grinned at her. “I’ve had enough trouble to last me a lifetime.”

Her smile widened as Steve turned towards Jonathan, who gave him an easy smile.

“I hear California is pretty cool,” Jonathan said. “You’ll have to tell us all about it.”

“Just as long as you do the same when you finally get to New York,” Steve grinned.

Joyce didn’t wait before wrapping Steve up in a hug while Hopper said goodbye to Billy. Steve didn’t feel the slightest hesitation about returning the hug, melting into her arms as his eyes drifted shut.

“Look after yourself, sweetie,” she murmured into his ear. “Have a _really_ lovely time. And if you ever need _anything at all, _just call us, okay?”

Steve pulled back as she smiled at him with all the warmth of the sun. He did his best to return the smile, nodding slightly.

“Okay, Mrs Byers – sorry – _Joyce,_” he gave a small laugh.

She peeled back and went and did much the same to Billy while Hopper clasped Steve’s shoulder.

“Have a good trip,” he said. “Look after yourselves, stay out of trouble and all that, you know the drill, I’m not going to give you the same lecture. And seriously, have a great time. You deserve it and more, kid.”

Steve’s smile widened as he nodded. “Thanks, Hopper.”

Hopper stepped back and let Steve turn towards the kids assembled.

“Right, you little shits,” Steve grinned, before catching sight of Joyce and Hopper with identical raised eyebrows. “Uh – sorry – _knuckleheads. _You be good for these guys. Don’t traumatise Robin _too _much-”

“Bit late for that, Dingus,” Robin added.

“Sinclair, look after my sister,” Billy growled, completely undermining the sinister persona with a grin that Lucas returned.

“Will do,” Lucas threw an arm around Max, causing her to send a withering look his way until he dropped it sheepishly. She then broke into a laugh and turned back to Billy and Steve.

“Max, don’t torture Lucas,” Steve rolled his eyes.

She gave Steve a grin that told everyone present that Steve’s request was not going to happen.

“Mike, El…” Steve looked at them as Mike raised an eyebrow and El gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. Steve paused, wondering what parting words of wisdom he could offer them.

“Remember other people exist,” Steve settled on, causing Dustin, Will and Lucas to snort ungracefully with barely suppressed laughter. By the long look Mike and El exchanged, his advice to them would be as implemented as his advice to Max. He sighed, turning towards Will, who was stood slightly to one side, still grinning from the joke at Mike and El’s expense.

“Will… I’m pretty sure I was banned from giving you advice by Jonathan years ago,” he shrugged. “I don’t know, you’ve got it mostly worked out. Listen to your brother before you listen to these idiots.”

Will grinned at him, giving him a slight shrug as he looked smugly over at the others, ignoring the slightly indignant noises from Dustin, Mike and Lucas.

“Byers,” Billy cut in. “If you _do _ever need to talk, we’re… we’re both here.”

Will’s smug grin morphed into something more genuine as he looked at Billy. There was a slight hint of surprise in his eyes at the offer from Billy, (something he was not alone in; Jonathan looked visibly taken aback,) but Will nodded appreciatively.

“Thanks, Billy,” he murmured. “And… Likewise.”

Billy nodded back at him, giving Will a sincere smile before turning to Max as Steve turned towards Dustin as the others started talking amongst themselves to give them a moment.

“Hey, man,” Steve murmured, taking in the bittersweet melancholy in Dustin’s eyes as he gave Steve a smile. “Look after yourself, alright? And if you ever need to talk-”

“I know where you are,” Dustin finished. “Well, I mean, I _won’t, _because I don’t know San Francisco, so the most I’ll know is the point on a map-”

“_Dustin,_” Steve cut him off, his eyes twinkling.

“Right – sorry,” Dustin paused. “But _you _look after yourself _too, _okay? _I know, _you’ll be in California, and you’ll have Billy, and it’s going to be _awesome, _but – you know – it’s _hot _there. Hotter than _here. _Remember to put on sunscreen – and if you’re in the ocean, watch out for currents – and they sometimes have wildfires in the summer so watch out for those, too-”

“_Dustin,_” Steve repeated. “I’m going to be _fine. _As you say, I’ve got Billy, and I’ve got you all back here, and – well – I’m the one with the car, so if I need to come back home, I can just ditch Billy or drag him back with me.”

Dustin looked down at the floor. “I know,” he murmured. “I just… I’m going to _miss _you, Steve.”

Steve let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as he pulled Dustin into a hug. “I’ll miss you too, buddy.”

Dustin let himself look melancholy for all of another second before hitching the smile back up onto his face with such genuine light shining in his eyes.

“_But _you’d better have _the best time ever, _okay? Seriously, Steve, I mean it. There’s nobody who needs it more. So _go. _Have fun. Learn how to surf so you can teach me. Get a tan.”

“More likely to get sunburnt, but okay,” Steve nodded, slightly taken aback by the vehemence of the well-wishes.

“Just _have fun,_” Dustin emphasised, his earnest smile as authentic and unabashed as Steve had ever seen it. “Don’t forget about us, but don’t spend _all _your time missing us, either.”

“_Okay, _okay, okay,” Steve laughed as he held up his hands defensively. “I will.”

Next to them, Max pulled Billy into a hug, leaning her cheek against his shoulder before turning towards Steve. She looked between the two, a similarly earnest smile on her face to Dustin’s.

“Look after each other,” she said. “I’m not going to worry about _either _of you, because I know you’re both pretty good about looking out for each other, but still.”

Billy tried for a reassuring smile, injecting a cocky arrogance into his tone as he glanced over at Steve. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after him. Make sure he doesn’t get _too _dazzled by the California lifestyle.”

Max groaned, burying his face in her hands. “Oh _god, _Steve, if you come back with blonde highlights again-”

The groan caught the attention of the others as Steve instantly went on the defensive.

“_Hey, _I’ll have you know I look _great _with highlights,” he frowned.

Robin raised an eyebrow. “Your highlights made the Scoops uniform the _second_ most ridiculous thing about you when I met you,” she deadpanned.

Steve’s face dropped into an unimpressed glower that was broken a moment later by Billy’s snort of laughter to his right that set off everyone else. Steve rolled his eyes.

“Right, well _on that note,_” Steve sighed. “We should… we should probably get moving…”

He trailed off, glancing over at Billy, who looked back at him with an enormous, uninhibited smile on his face. Steve couldn’t help but smile back at him as he was swept up in a final round of hugs, their future spread out in front of them.

Maybe Steve would like California enough to stay. Maybe he and Billy would get a shitty little run-down apartment together. Maybe Steve would get a job, maybe they’d _both_ get jobs. Billy could go back to lifeguarding at a pool or maybe even on the beach. Steve didn’t know _what _he’d do. Maybe he’d go into coaching sports for kids. He might try reapplying for colleges out there – he had enough material for one hell of a personal essay, after all. Perhaps he’d enrol in a few classes in a local community college in the meantime. He could see them coming back to Hawkins for the holidays, spending Independence Day as a yearly ritual with his mom and dad. He and Billy could come back to stay, spend Christmas and Thanksgiving with his parents and catch up with the people now enveloping him and Billy in a thousand final hugs. He didn’t know what the future would hold – for so long he’d barely considered the possibility that he’d even _have _a future. He didn’t know where they’d end up – whether they’d stay in San Francisco, or whether they’d come back to Hawkins, or maybe head down to Los Angeles to see Billy’s mom, to give Billy a chance to reconnect with her. But as he said his final goodbyes to the people who meant so much to him, he turned to Billy, knowing that the world – _Steve’s world _– started and stopped with Billy. Whatever happened next, with the future spread out across the dashboard in front of them as Steve climbed into the driver’s seat of his BMW, he knew that he would take on the world with Billy by his side. _Always._

“Shall we see what musical atrocities they put on this tape?” Billy held up the cassette to Steve, who smiled and nodded.

Billy slipped it into the player on the side that he’d been told was the side of their favourite music as opposed to Jonathan and Robin’s attempts at broadening their horizon. Steve broke into a smile as the tell-tale opening chords to _Mr Blue Sky _filled the car. Billy let out a groan.

“Hey!” Steve grinned. “This was the song that got me into _actual _music.”

“It’s like the sun projectile vomited in a recording studio,” Billy groaned.

Steve snorted with laughter as he rolled down the window, starting the car as he waved goodbye to the group assembled in Max’s driveway. Final farewells floated back at them as Billy stopped complaining long enough to wave back.

“See you around, guys!” Steve called. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“Don’t do anything I _would _do!” Billy added.

Final words drifted back towards them.

_“Good luck!”_

_“Have a great time!”_

_“See you when you’re back for the summer!”_

The house started to vanish in the rearview mirror as they cruised down Cherry Lane and towards the edge of Hawkins as Billy shot the tape a withering look as _Mr Blue Sky _continued to play. Steve couldn’t resist the urge to start singing, his grin barely contained as he could barely imagine a more perfect time for the song to start playing, with wall-to-wall blue sky above them.

“_Mister Blue, you did it right, but soon comes Mister Night_-”

“Oh, _god, _Steve, please don’t start singing-”

“_Now his hand is on your shoulder_-”

“Please stop-”

“_Never mind, I’ll remember you this…_”

He glanced over at Billy, who gave him back a withering look that didn’t quite hide the smile that he finally allowed to spread across his face, a fondness shining in his eyes. Steve grinned back as they passed the sign that signified the edge of Hawkins, blown away, not for the first time, by just how much he’d come to love the man sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

He reached out a hand, weaving his fingers with Billy’s own as they finally left Hawkins, grinning at each other with all the love in the world.

_I’ll remember you this way._

** THE END **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all you wonderful people who have read to the end,
> 
> I hope you’ll give me a pass for the slightly different format of the final author’s note, but I feel the occasion warrants it. You wonderful readers have been the best readers I could have asked for. I’ve continuously been blown away by all your support throughout this story. Thank you all for coming with me on this journey. Thank you for everyone who kudosed, commented, bookmarked, or even just read every chapter. Whether you’ve come to this story after it’s finished or whether you’ve been following along since the beginning, I want you to know that your support has meant the absolute world to me. Thank you for sticking it out when things got dark, thank you for putting up with my crazy ideas, and thank you for trusting me enough to give you a happy ending. Without you supporting me every step of the way, I wouldn’t have managed this story.
> 
> When I started this story almost 11 months ago, I honestly didn’t think I’d have it in me to finish it. I’ve never written a story this long before, and I was worried I was going to get fatigue from it. If it hadn’t been for all you wonderful people cheering me on at every chapter, giving me the motivation to keep going, I probably would have given up a long time ago. I started writing it at a time when things weren’t great in my life, I was a bit lost in my career and wasn’t really sure what to do. So I opened up Microsoft Word on my computer and started to write for the first time in about five years. This story has since kept me sane the worst of a global pandemic, as well as filling a massive hole left by the end of season three. I’m continuously blown away by what this story has become. (It’s only about 6000 words shorter than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, to put it into perspective.)
> 
> I can’t quite believe that I’ve managed to do this, and I can’t quite believe it’s over. I’ve been putting off finishing the epilogue because I feel like there’s going to be a massive hole in my life once this is done, so the last few paragraphs have been the hardest paragraphs to write of the whole story. Even though I’ve known since about February knew what the last line of this was going to be, I struggled with the leadup to it because I didn’t want it to be over. But it’s come at a perfect time for me, because today I’m starting a new chapter in my career which is very exciting! 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the wild ride that Long Live The Kings has been. I’ve been so happy to hear what you’ve all thought as we go along, so if you’ve got this far and want to leave a comment, it will be very much appreciated. Also, if you want to find me on Tumblr, I am (moderately) active on that, my username is @me-4eva if you want to connect. I do have the vaguest ideas for a sequel, but I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to write it and I’d need to work out the finer points of the plot so I’m making no promises. So for now, and possibly forever, Billy and Steve get to drive off into the sunset (or, you know, perfect wall-to-wall blue sky…)
> 
> Honestly, thank you all so much for reading. It means the world to me that you took the time to read my crazy story. I couldn’t have asked for better readers. I love you all.
> 
> L x


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